I imported a few cars from the USA myself. But that was relatively easy, because these cars were picked up by trailer in Rotterdam.
UK is a special case, so far I have learned but no personal experiences... mainly because of personal insurance and the requirement to reside in the UK for 12 months before you would be insured.
In the following I am not talking about the usual requirements (contract of sale, tax paid, existing license number, valid MOT, etc., etc.)
I am only talking about ONE aspect, without which it does not work anyway to get a car out of the UK on its own wheels as a German .
The problems is that you can not get a „frontier insurance“ any longer.
Until last summer there was offered such an insurance via the ADAC (German Automobile Club). It was the only offer in the market.
This frontier insurance had made it possible to insure the car in the UK on a German collector as long as the car is taxed in the UK, has MOT, plates. That was like squaring the circle.
Allegedly, this insurance
http://www.tourinsure.de/en/homenow offers the same service (although it is actually intended for tourists abroad).
You should urgently contact this insurance company and have them explicitly and personally confirm whether they really insure the trip from UK to Germany with the intention of transferring the vehicle.
If this is not expressly confirmed by this one and only insurance offer for this cases all that remains is to pick up the car with the trailer or a freight forwarder.
Please do not attempt to transfer the car with a German short-term license plate or a red dealer plate. At the ferry port at the latest, this goes wrong during the usual police checks. In the worst case, the car is confiscated. Under German law, the use of a short-term license plate to bring a car from outside to Germany would be an illegal „remote registration“.
