Smart Cabrio on ebay motors...

Both. The car does not meet the US standards; this is quite obvious just by looking at it. Non-spec bumpers, front and rear. Non-spec mirrors, left and right. Non-spec glass all around. Non-spec headlamps, front turn signals, rear lamp assemblies. No sidemarker lights, front or rear. No sidemarker reflectors, front or rear. Non-spec interior displays (odometer, parking brake warning lamp). Non-spec seatbelts. Non-spec airbag system. The list goes on and on and on.

Mile speedometers aren't required. But tell us, guy, where are we going to find these nonexistent US-compliant Smart head and taillamps, window glass, sideview mirrors, and all the other stuff they don't make 'cause they don't sell 'em here?

Donno where you got this idea, it's wrong.

Anyway, here's the answer from the Ebay seller in response to my query:

----- Original Message -----

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 21:31:57 -0400 From: Margie Subject: Re: Smart car on Ebay

We are the second owners of the car. We bought the car from a German man who imported it from Germany. When we bought it in Ohio, all we needed was the Ohio title. With it, we transferred the title to our name. Got it registered and bought normal passenger car license plates. We do not know anything about any forms because we did not import the car, sorry I know this isn't the response you wanted.

Brent P replied:

Something I've seen many times is a car that was apparently purchased in Yurrup and issued a license plate for Germany or wherver, but with a California plate mounted on top of it. When the car was shipped to the U.S., the owner kept the Euro-plate on the car. The European plate is wider, of course, and sticks out on from behind the California plate on either side. Which is exactly what's desired.

Up through the Seventies and maybe into the Eighties, I used to see cars with *oval* West German license plates. It's never been clear to me what the deal was with those, since I knew that the standard West German plates were long and rectangular. Were those oval plates the sort that were issued to American servicemen stationed in Germany?

Geoff

The oval German plates were tourist (temporary) plates. So I assume they could be issued to the miliotary stationed there.

What you see these days in (a few) cars of german origin but titled in the US are also tourist plates but they have changed shapes and color. Now they have regular shape for a german plate, but they have a vertical red line about an inch thick in one of the two sides. They tend to be in BMWs as their European delivery program is quite popular: people fly to Germany, pick-up the US-spec car previously bought at a US dealership, drive it around for up to 30 days using German tourist plates, drop it off, fly back to the US, and pick up the car at the dealership with the two sets of plates.

Ignasi Palou-Rivera haute in die Tasten:

These plates are for export purposes i.e. for a car which gets its first registration (and insurance) in Germany, but is bound to leave the country after a while and never come back. Today these export plates are shaped like usual license plates but carry a red mark on the left side instead of a blue one. In order not to make the cars of US military personnel in Germany stick out of the crowd, german authorities have just recently created several "fake" districts and issued license plates for US citizens which look like german plates.

Frank

"Daniel J. Stern" haute in die Tasten:

How does that comply with the principle of free trade?

Frank

"Frank Kemper" wrote

The same way that the EU doesn't allow, say, a Dodge Caravan to be imported from the US. (It doesn't have EC headlights like the Chrysler Town & Country.)

Floyd

You are lying: No problem to import such a car into the EU - all you have to do is to change the headlights to ones with an EU approval on them.

So the question is: WHY are you lying?

Juergen

In no way: It is simply a mechanism to protect the US car industry agianst imports.

Juergen

In some countries, you don't even have to do that. There are a LOT of US-spec cars, complete with US headlamps and red rear turn signals, running around Germany. France is much stricter. Those are only two examples.

DS

The different-from-the-rest-of-the-world-but-not-better-as-a-whole North American safety and emissions regulations are non-tariff trade barriers to protect the domestic car industry. The North American regulators self-righteously deny it, of course, but there's no other plausible explanation, especially since it would take about two months' work (max!) to identify the best practices in both sets of regulations and put together one set of standards, if the US insisted on not just going along with the standards used by the rest of the world.

Canada was looking at allowing rest-of-world (ECE-spec) cars in, a few years ago. Idea passed upward through Transport Canada, passed all safety analyses, but GM and Ford howled ("No! If we build a car for Germany, we want it to stay there!") and the US DOT howled ("No! If you do this, we'll be the only ones doing something different!") so the idea was scrapped.

National Highway Traffic "Safety" administration.

DS

If the US consumers in great numbers actually got a look at what ford and GM offer the rest of the world they'd have to make better cars that cost more for the US market. Thing is they wouldn't be able to sell them for more. We'd actually get good value, and that cannot be allowed. Americans are to have crap unless they pay huge sums for something better.

Being driven by Ford executives? ;)

"fbloogyudsr" haute in die Tasten:

If you buy a car of any imaginable brand and import it to the EC without modification, you may not be allowed to use it in public traffic, but of course you can buy it, use it on your private property, on non-public race tracks or as a permanent display in your show room. Besides that it is quite simple to convert just about any existing US car to EU regulations and run it in europe. AFAIK the typical costs for that are 1000 - 2000 US$. You may encounter problems with cars like the Saleen S7 or the Vector W 12. They might be expensive to convert due to tire issues.

Frank

"Daniel J. Stern" haute in die Tasten:

Maybe I made a language error. I know that the smart is not DOT-EPA approved. But I do not think that it cannot meet the requirements because it wouold not meet US crash, enviromental or anti-theft standards. Maybe the biggest issue would be installing bumpers which survive 5 mph crashes. New headlight should be a task which can be solved.

I believe your words that a DOT-EPA approval cannot be achieved for that car at reasonable cost, but I think the reason for that is not of techical but of political reason.

Frank

"Daniel J. Stern" haute in die Tasten:

I think you did not get my point. If Mercedes wanted to sell the car in the US, it would be possible to get DOT-EPA for it, even if they had to change some parts (as they do in every car they sell to the US)

Frank

"Frank Kemper" wrote

The 5mph requirement went away years ago (1982) - it's 2.5mph IIRC.

I have to say that, if you didn't know that, what else about US regs don't you know?

Floyd

Well, surely it would be possible. Volume importation by a vehicle maker, however, is an entirely different consideration than single-vehicle importation by a private individual. And it's not just changing parts, it's re-engineering systems and going through the *VERY* expensive emissions certification testing (not your yearly smog check down at the service station, this process takes DAYS) and crash testing (front, side, rear, etc.).

DS

"fbloogyudsr" haute in die Tasten:

Do you expect an answer on that rant?

Frank