Mini Petrol Powered Corvette 'Go-Kart' For Sale (7ft Long) On UK Ebay

I never said that. I was talking about the concept of planned obsolescence, on the part of carmakers, being too subtle for you to know of or understand. Which it appears to be. QED.

Well, whether it's a one, two, or three year cycle is kind of irrelevant to the argument, don't you think? Are you denying planned obsolescence? Will you deny the holocaust next? Will you assert creationism? (OK, I'm getting dangerously close to Darwinning this thread).

snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) realised it was Thu, 23 Nov 2006

22:38:09 +0000 and decided it was time to write:

Our system is even simpler: only the car's registration number is needed. The computer knows the rest.

(alt.autos.corvette added again, just for lafs)

Heh, good point. However, most places prefer the VIN just in case there's been a plate change - eg. my Alfa 75 plate is no good on dealer systems as it's not the original plate.

Evil bastard ;-)

VIN is originally US carmaker terminology. It defines the car individually, right down to its build month and year. Now we're talking! What do UK carmakers use to identify the vehicles that

*they* build?

You're putting up a straw man argument. Do you know what a straw man is?

Erm, VIN is universal, YTC.

Yes, and no I'm not. But you're digging a rather large hole at the moment.

Yes, it is *now*, but you missed the word "originally" in my post. You seem to do this sort of poor reading comprehension thing a lot. You should pay more attention to detail, I think I pointed this out to you once before.

For how long have UK car (what used to be called) serial numbers conformed to any international VIN standard? Would that be for as long as Ford, GM, Toyota, et al, have been doing it?

I don't think so, but we'll see. You still need to convince me that "Mk V Escort" is a more accurate descriptor than "1995 Escort." Go on, have another go at it. You've failed miserably so far.

A total of 43 - 1983 model Corvettes were built, but there were so many quality problems with them it was decided to halt production until they could be corrected. By the time the problems were corrected, it was so late into the model year that the car was brought out as a 1984 model which was run for a year and a half. The 1983,s were never sold to the public and the only one that is known to still exist is in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY

Model years are much more complicated than simply ways for manufacturers to cheat you out of your money.

Environmental issues -

The EPA in the US issues regulations based on model years. Yes, they could say all cars registered after 1/1/2000 must comply with ..., however, as pointed out here several times, new cars may or may not get registered immediately after being produced.

So would it be right to have a car built to the pre-1/1/2000 requirement, say built 11/30/1999, have to be junked due to it not being sold and registered prior to 1/1/2000? The use of model year eases this problem, gives a clear switch-over in the production for incorporating new regulations, and allow manufacturers to not be penalized because someone didn't buy and register the car quick enough.

Real life case: In 1978, Chevrolet announced the Pace Car model. Many people bought these and trailered them to long-term storage, as they intended these to be investments. However, as many know, the investment dream failed and so many were later registered and driven on the street as regular cars.

Should Chevrolet be punished for building a car built to 1978 standards that is first registered in 1984 or 1988, which of course does not meet those

1984 or 1988 standards?

Safety regulations -

Same situations, each manufacturer has to comply with safety equipment that complies with the standards for a given date. However, the MODEL year is certified, not the model, as some models range over several years and thus several different standards.

Buying New Old Stock -

Unlike the UK where I have seen two and three year old "new" Minis in dealers waiting to be sold, in the US, the model year automatically establishes a car as old when the model year changes. Thus buyers are protected from buying a car that is three years old, even if it has zero miles, for the same price as a new car which was built a week or month ago. There are laws that regulate this.

A little help for Yahoo - UK finds:

The Rover Defender apparently refers to model years as this article on the Defender 03 model year.

-- Fiat introduce the new Panda "Model Year 2007"

-- More style, safety and performance for 2004 model year RAV4,

-- Ka and Fiesta - enter the 2001 model year

excel History and Classification - apparently, Lotus does use model years. and

So model year is not unheard of in the UK, just not used that much.

There have been many cars that have been started late in the model year, such as the '64-1/2 Mustang, the '70 Corvette, and so on.

However, the '83 Corvette passed all of the 1984 requirements for the EPA and DOT and so was certified as a 1984 model car.

Otherwise, they would have had to certify for the 1983 regulations, build the 1983 model year until summer, certify another set for the 1984, and begin building the '84 model run.

It saved a lot of money by simply certifying for 1984 and building only 1984 models only.

Our government at work.

I think there is also a regulation, buried deep in history, that each model year must change from the previous, to help distinguish model year vehicles, if only so slightly. So they would have had to build 6 months, then redesign something, produce those parts, and build again.

While many C4 Corvettes look identical, they all have changes.

A little off topic here, for all you British guys.

Did British Telecom ever figure out how to itemize telephone bills so you knew where you were calling and when, rather than simply getting a bill that said you owe us £46? (sorry if this doesn't work, no pound symbol here)

20 years ago, that was all I'd get from them. Not a clue as to where the ph>

A Historic Vehicle is one manufactured in 1972 or earlier, even if it was first registered in 1973 or later.

Jim

Yes. Maybe you'd refer to the changes that they WILL make, for the stated reasons, at every new model year is "minor facelift". They *do* tend to make a few changes to each model year to give the marketers and salespeople something new to sell. I know this leads to a stockpile of the old MY version to sell at discount prices. I never said it made complete sense, but then I'm not in tha planning department of GM.

Of course I am referring to GM/Vauxhall. I know full well that Lotus can't afford to make changes every year, but that is irrelevant in this case.

There will be differences if it's a big manufacturer's core product.

Well it does. Our *old* registration number scheme fitted nicely into the manufacturers' model years, so that if one goes and buys a new car in August

1992 to get a K plate you would also have the option of buying the 1993 model year version at list price (more or less), which may only have different seat cloth options, or the "old" 1992 MY version at a discount.

Unless it is a safety issue requiring a recall, manufacturers like GM really DO save all their changes for a new model year, which is totally artificial. Of course in 1998 we changed to a 6 month system, so that the autumn plate change happens a month later in September. This strangely means that there are a twelfth more R plate cars than previous letters, and three different cars sold in 1999 could have S, T or V plates and be any of 1998, 1999 or 2000 MY cars.

Have a look at Haynes manuals: they refer to a car my its model year. So do the manufacturers.

I remember having itemised bills sometime around 1994/5.

cheers, clive

Only if they can't find a way to bankrupt it, bribe it, invade it, blow it up or otherwise destabilise and take it over...

Let's not dwell on recently - they didn't actually kick our asses in 1812. We beat them fair and square. Trust Uncle Cecil on this ...

I'm not talking about the reason why: I'm questioning your claim, in the post quoted above, that "there's no specification difference". There is. You are wrong.

Now that I can agree with, we took up some of the traits from jolly old England and sadly they were not all good.

I do have a problem when one limey says we bury our heads in the sand and the next one says we have our fingers in everything? Would that suggest that you both go both ways?

International VIN standard? Why does any international standard matter? As long as it's recognised by the dealer network of the manufacturer of that particular car, then that's all that matters. Someone with a Peugeot bought in the UK isn't going to be going to a Chrysler dealer in Uzbekistan for (sp?) parts.

Well, I'd call it a Mk6 myself - for me the Mk5 was the new model around

1992, that was fairly well known to be monumentally s**te. Anyway, calling something a Mk5 as opposed to a 1995 model is a much better idea simply because it actually related to previous models. If you call something a Mk5 then people know that it's the one after the Mk4 (the previous shape). 1995 doesn't neccessarily mean a lot, especially if you consider each facelift as a new model.

The message from Dean Dark contains these words:

A quick Google seems to suggest that the ISO standard for VINs dates back to 1977 but that the USA standard is compatible with, but does not conform to, the ISO standard.

FWIW Lotus used a very similar term to 'Vehicle Identification number' (vehicle identification (Chassis numbering)) in the workshop manuals of the period from as early as 1st January 1970. Chassis number which was the term in common use in those days and I suspect that 'chassis number' can be traced right back to the very first car production run and very possibly prior to that for items such as steam powered trains and even horse drawn carriages.