WE WANT MID-80’s CARS FROM EUROPE!
In the United States, we have a bunch of stupid laws on the books, stuff on drugs, stuff on marriage, stuff on guns that no one seems to understand the historical precedence. And a whole mess of stupid laws on cars and traffic, with none bigger that the idiotic import law, something that saw a whole mess of “illegal” Classic Range Rovers seized and crushed. OH THE HUMANITY!
It all starts off in 1988 with the Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act. What it is a set of laws that require vehicles imported into the United States meet a certain safety and environmental level to pass inspection. Really only automakers are allowed to do this, mostly because it costs them upwards of $2 million a vehicle to certify them for importation.
And generally this is done with production cars that will be of greater business sense in the United States. This leaves a vast array of cars never brought into the States and has collectors and enthusiasts wishing and primarily waiting for these special automobiles.
There is one provision to the law and it involves classics. Since classics are of historical value, anything over the age of 25 years is allowed to be imported directly to the United States.
However, that importation is anything but straight forward. Often those agencies dealing with the laws don’t know everything about the cars and often leads to misinformation and at times seizure of those vehicles. No compensation is paid to the rightful owners and the cars are then sent to the scrapyard to be demolished.
Other countries make it much easier to import cars, such as Canada, pretty much all of Europe and Japan. The best way I’ve seen the United States’ laws described was from Wikipedia stating, “The United States continues to use a unique set of safety and emission regulations.” I can just imagine the passionate car fan that wrote that swearing like a crazy person in their head while writing that.
Pleas have been made to the government before to repeal the law, or at least change the wording to make it clearer for those that wish to import something awesome. Now Petrolicious has once again taken up the cause with a White House Petition that if they get 100,000 signatures, then by law the White House has to address it.
Now that doesn’t mean anything will get done, but hopefully if enough people see it, sign it, send it to their corrupt congressional representative, then something will be done.
If you are like me, you want some illegal remarkable cars, like for example a RS200 Evolution. So please, take two seconds, sign the petition and help all of us get some much needed love from Congress to actually do something constructive!
GO HERE AND SIGN IT DAMMIT! IF YOU LOVE CLASSIC CARS DO IT!