THE hottest parallel import today is arguably the 480bhp Nissan GT-R (above). But authorised Nissan agent Tan Chong won't get the official export version till the first half of next year. So as not to lose too much sales to parallel importers, Tan Chong subsidiary Downtown Travel - a rental company - has started importing GT-Rs. The first unit has already been snapped up. Downtown's car has an open-market value of about $115,000, compared with as low as $80,000 for some cars brought in by parallel importers. Because of this, its car costs around $330,000 on the road, versus the $280,000 tag posted by most of the others.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Mar 8, 2008.