GTA 3 Import Export: Crane Car Lists and Rewards
GTA 3 import export explained: the Portland crane and Shoreside Vale garage wish-lists, where to find every requested car, the cash rewards, and the 100% rule.
The GTA 3 import export side activity asks you to deliver specific vehicles to dropoff points across Liberty City for cash, and it counts toward 100% completion. Three locations make up the whole job: the Portland Docks emergency-vehicle crane, the Portland Docks industrial garage, and the Shoreside Vale garage in Pike Creek. This guide breaks down the exact wish-list for each, where the cars spawn, what they pay, and which ones gate your completion percentage.
How the GTA 3 import export system works
Each location holds a fixed shopping list of vehicles. Park a requested model in the marked dropoff zone and the game accepts it, pays you, and crosses it off the list. At the Portland Docks crane, the zone is a yellow-striped square beside the shipping containers: drive a wanted vehicle onto it, step out, and a magnetic crane swings over, grabs the car, and loads it onto the cargo ship. The two garage locations work the same way but with a roll-up door instead of a crane.
A few rules apply everywhere:
- Damage does not matter. You get the full payout for a smoking wreck, as long as it does not explode before it is exported.
- Each car only needs to be delivered once. Duplicates are not accepted.
- Finishing a full list pays a large bonus and unlocks free re-spawns of every vehicle on that list (see below).
All three lists are required for 100% completion, so even if you only care about the trophy, you cannot skip the crane.
The Portland crane cars (emergency vehicle list)
The Portland Docks crane wants seven emergency vehicles. Each delivery pays $1,500, and clearing the whole list awards a $200,000 bonus. The seven GTA 3 crane cars are:
- Ambulance: parked at the Portland hospital, or it arrives whenever there is a pile of bodies on the street.
- Fire Truck: drives out of the Portland fire station, or set enough fires and one responds.
- Police Car: the easiest grab, parked at any police station or driven by patrols.
- Enforcer (SWAT van), appears with the SWAT team at a four-star wanted level, or sits at the rear of the Staunton Island police station.
- FBI Car: spawns with FBI units once you hit a five-star wanted level.
- Barracks OL (army truck), found at Phil Cassidy's Army Surplus on Staunton Island later in the game, or driven by the military at a six-star level.
- Rhino: the tank shows up only at a six-star wanted level, the game's maximum. It also waits at Phil Cassidy's Army Surplus on Staunton Island once you finish the final mission, The Exchange, which is the easiest way to grab one.
The Rhino and FBI Car are the reason this is the trickiest list. You need late-game progression and a high wanted level to provoke them onto the map. If you want a shortcut for the tank, our GTA 3 cheats rundown covers the spawn code, though using cheats can disable trophies on some versions.
The Shoreside Vale garage list (civilian cars)
The Shoreside Vale garage sits in Pike Creek, just north of the local Pay 'n' Spray, and it is the most forgiving list of the three. It requests 16 civilian vehicles, pays $1,000 each, and hands over a $200,000 bonus on completion. The lineup leans on sports cars and everyday sedans:
- Banshee, Cheetah, Infernus, Stinger: the sports-car tier, all driven around Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale.
- Sentinel, Kuruma, Esperanto, Idaho, Stallion, Manana, Perennial: common sedans and coupes that fill regular traffic.
- Landstalker: the SUV, frequent on Shoreside roads.
- Taxi, Cabbie, Stretch: the service vehicles; taxis and limos circulate steadily.
- BF Injection: the one genuinely awkward entry.
Almost every car on this list spawns as normal traffic inside the district, which is why players often finish the Shoreside Vale set in under half an hour. The BF Injection is the exception: it appears parked near Misty's apartment in Hepburn Heights on Portland, and only in the evening (roughly 18:00 to midnight) after you complete Sayonara Salvatore. Grab it during those hours and drive it across to Pike Creek to close out the list.
The Portland industrial garage (the third list)
While the crane and the Shoreside garage are the headline operations, the full GTA III vehicle export job includes a third stop: the Portland Docks industrial garage, right next to the crane. It asks for 16 work vehicles at $1,000 apiece, with the same $200,000 completion bonus.
This list is all vans, trucks, and oddballs: Blista, Bobcat, Bus, Coach, Dodo, Flatbed, Linerunner, Moonbeam, Mr. Whoopee, Mule, Patriot, Pony, Rumpo, Securicar, Trashmaster, and Yankee. The Dodo (the clipped-wing plane) and the Mr. Whoopee ice-cream van are the rarest, so save them for a focused hunt. A Yankee box truck conveniently parks right beside the crane dropoff, which makes it an easy first delivery.
Rewards, the free-vehicle perk, and why it is worth it
Add it up and the cash is substantial. Per-vehicle payouts come to $1,500 on the crane and $1,000 at each garage, and every completed list drops a $200,000 bonus, three bonuses in total. The real long-term value, though, is the free-vehicle perk.
Once you finish a list, floating pickup icons appear at that location, one for each vehicle you delivered. Walk into an icon and the game spawns that exact vehicle for you, free, on the spot. For the Portland crane that means on-demand access to a Rhino tank and an FBI Car without grinding a six-star wanted level every time, which is the single best reason to grind the emergency list out. For the Shoreside garage it means a guaranteed Infernus or Cheetah whenever you want one.
If you are working toward full completion, treat the three import export lists as a checklist alongside the hidden packages, rampages, and unique stunt jumps. For the broader picture of what counts, see the GTA 3 game hub. You can also browse the era's look in our GTA 3 screenshots gallery.
