best idea ive heard so far

Two things happen -- as an off road vehicle turned into an ON road vehicle you will need a VIN number and pass two inspections - an allowed in canada/vin inspection and an out of province inspection -- YOU WOULD FAIL BOTH
As for a custom frame idea again you need to prove ALL parts were purchased separately by you or manufactured by you (Not bought as a whole or in part as a kit and disassembled for import) and then you face getting a vin and the two inspection -- YOU WOULD FAIL ALL THE ABOVE
The only real legal way to have a kit car in Canada is if you build it completely from scratch yourself and save every reciept for every nut and bolt -- oh and do not die before its finished LOL
The auto makers do not want kit cars on the road in this country - period

you know in texas an extra $50 under the table gets anything inspected. no joke, try moving

hmm are you 100% sure about that off road thing? My buddy who lives in vancouver has both sent this truck to washington for work, including a lift and returned it no problem. He also purchased a truck close to seattle and drove it back up that had lift etc with minimal issues. Did it with a boat as well. Not 100% on it it all but putting a new body on the car may not have an affect on customs. Just give them a call and see what they have to say. If the car is not imported into the US then it wont need to be imported back into canada. Therefore in theory you may be able to just drive it across...

i know i did not do the import paper work for my bike when i moved to the US, so among other scenarios I was told one option would be to ship it back to canada and sell it there, or ship it back and then send it back to US with the import paper work...talking to canada customs I did not have to do a thing besides show registration paper work to bring it into canada, and it has a completely new fiberglass body on it.

What if its a race car? if its going to be used for racing, (or cumstoms thinks its going to be used for racing) I think it should be let in. it sounds like your talking for street use. the idea as I said is to just get it across the border. Then worrie about the inspections and if it will pass safty and all that. This is something I would have to talk to Customs about first.

How about getting a friend to register the car in say Wisconsin and then driving the car over the border. Are they likely to stop you at border patrol?
Then drive the car in Canada on Wisconsin plates.
I always wondered about this as I know Wisconsin has cheaper road tax than Minnesota so you see lots of people in Minneapolis who have their car registered at their parents / friends places for the cheaper tax...
I have no idea if this will work - just putting it out there for discussion!

I have direct experience with getting my rolling frame through customs when I trailered it up from Oregon.

I got to the border at way early in the morning (about 1:30 a.m.) and started workingwith the customs guy there to get it through the border and pay my tax and import fees etc.  In my case, I was verylucky in that the frame still has a fiero VIN on it as there is about 3 square feet of original Fiero on the custom frame which included the VIN on the front windscreen frame.

The customs guy was going to register it into Canada as off road (race car only) and that would have put me in the position as CarBuilder says to have to get it certified with VIN, saying it was road worthy etc., I was lucky on the VIN itself as Out of Country and then out of Province at least had the VIN to start with.

He was having a terrible time filling out the paperwork for the race car route so I convinced him, and he convinced himself, to just use the regular importation paperwork saying that the Fiero with VIN was heavily modified.... I would say so since most of the Fiero was no longer part of the frame......

Anyway, I lucked out on the frame but the customs guy said if I was to go the race car route, I would have a heck of a time getting it certified in Canada at all for road use.

Not saying this is the whole story for everyone but my experience only.  I will still need to do an out of country and then an out of province inspection before I get a registration slip which would be as a heavily modified Fiero and then I will need to get it appraissed for insurance so I am properly covered.

Factory Five Racing is the only one that I know in the States that has a really good explanation on how to import a partially completed kit into Canada properly and there was another fellow here on the board from Canada that had figured a way out but I have not had time to read it all yet.

Good luck to anyone who wants to bring anything more than fiberglass panels in box over the border....

Cheers
Don