I know a guy who imports JDM cars to Canada. Once it is 15 model years old, it just has to meet the lighting/mechanical safety standards and pass an inspection rather than being homologated for crash tests, etc. Pretty big free for all, especially in a place like Alberta where there are no smog tests, and anything newer than 1988 only has to be inspected once per sale.
He brings in a pile of turbo Silvias and Skylines, it seems like the Nissan products are what sells best. As well, anything with an equivalent Lexus, Acura or Infiniti gets advertised as the North American model rather than the Japanese equivalent.
Japanese cars are fairly hard to keep on the road after seven years due to inspections, and I just can't imagine too many high milers coming out of there. It goes through an inspection after three years, then each two years after that, and at seven years old annually and it has to be kept up to a fairly high standard.
So they send the cars to New Zealand, Australia and other right hand drive, Pacific Rim countries, or part them out and sell JDM parts to people around the world who want them for whatever their project is. Due to Canada's import laws, we are getting a lot of fifteen year old Japanese cars coming across the ocean now.
