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

You know it seems we actually agree on all these points, especially your last.

Why did you say that "Tough, it does over here" to the argument "Registration date model year"?

Which was all I disagreed with in the first place.

Because GM does have an internal concept of model year, internally they (used to) refer to Vauxhall models with a model year, so there isn't an '83 Corvette for reasons already mentioned, but there will be plenty registered in '83, either '84 MY or '82 MY cars.

You see it does seem to make sense for manufacturers, at least GM anyway, to batch up their non-recall changes to create a new model each year. It simplifies the marketing, advertising and merchandising if they can produce a brochure for the '94 Astra with the coming year's trim levels and specifications. You will findthat that is when the facelifts and trim updates occur. And with Vauxhall (GM) I can't remember if it was August that was the new model year - across the range - or September but it seemed to coincide more or less with the new registration years.

So my argument is that, with GM cars at least, there IS a model year, but no, I agree with you that it isn't registered as such. But that just means that you will not find a V5 that says it's an '83 in this case because the V5 doesn't include that. And if they never made an '83 model then there will never be a Title with MY'83 on it for two reasons: they never made an '83 and the MY isn't on the Title.

That's just to justify the 'model year' designation, though.

I'm not denying that they do it - this whole debate was sparked because it was claimed you can't have a 1983 C4, because GM called cars built in March 1983 a 1984 model year car. Doesn't stop it from being built in

1983, and therefore a 1983 car - from what I can gather, the 1985 model year didn't come into production until late 1984.

Much the same as here, then. But with all other things equal, of course, date of registration, the easiest way to tell the "age" of a car, is going to influence the price.

I love the way the topic has digressed but I thought I would show the orginal post for those who may be interested!!!

Happy thanksgiving to all the USA readers and posters

Ian ____________________________________

I am selling, on behalf of a family member, a Mini Petrol Powered Corvette You can sit in it and it will run at about 22 mph

It has never been run or used but has been in storage for over 10 years.

It is listed on ebay and can be found using the following link

Happy bidding if you are interested and thank you in advance for looking.

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 ;-)

Cross posting across partisan car groups is seldom wise. However, I apologize to a.a.c. for having stirred up a sh#t storm from uk.rec.cars.classic.

Having said that, I must add that the devil in me has enjoyed doing it. Please note that this is *not* crossposted. Let's keep it that way, m'kay?

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?