IT has been about 40 years since cars and other vehicles were offloaded at the Port of Portland, but all that might be about to change thanks to a critical issue at the Port of Melbourne.

Both vehicle importers and shipping agents are facing a three-month wait to unload vehicles at the city port, with thousands backed up either on the wharves or still in ships.

Port of Portland infrastructure manager Michael Carr said importers had been in touch with the port to see if there was any chance of importing them through here.

Though it wasn’t as simple as just diverting ships to Portland – three vessels that are likely candidates carry either 4000 or 5000 vehicles each and are between 183m and 199m long..

“There’s a few things we’ve got to do at our end,” he said.

“We need to assess these large roll-on roll-off vessels and our marine department would need to assess our tugs and their capacity to bring them in.

There’s also the likes of depth requirements at berths and quarantine areas as all vehicles that come off a ship would need to be cleaned and inspected to meet federal requirements.

“We have got the space for that but there are multiple layers of approvals required,” Mr Carr said.

“There are still no guarantees we would get the approvals for it.”

High-sided vessels also presented a challenge in roll-on roll-off vessels in.

The vehicles could then be taken to the empty Port-owned holding yards at Canal Ct – previously home to logs until about last year.

Mr Carr said the last time vehicles were imported through the Port appeared to be about 40 years ago.

Port records showed the Nedlloyd Fraser visited here via East Africa with 120 vehicles in June 1980 and again with six vehicles and a bulldozer the following year, while Maersk Wave and Yonekawa Maru came here from Adelaide and Melbourne respectively in February 1982 with cars and trucks.