Don't Tread on Me: A Petition to Change Vehicle Import Laws

Supergoji

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition...years/L50BZzwj


This is the Reason the Nissan Skyline is Illegal in the US

taken from the above link

"Its heard all the time on the internet, the Nissan Skyline is illegal in the USA. To the layperson, they may hear this and take it as gospel. It used to be you would hear its illegal because it is right hand drive. You would hear that it is illegal because it was too fast. Neither of which is true. Here is the true reason that the Nissan Skyline is illegal in the US, Mercedes Benz North America.

What does Mercedes Benz have to do with a Nissan Skyline? Picture yourself as Mercedes Benz North America, the official distributor of Mercedes Benz. As the distributor you setup the dealer networks, handle parts and warranty, import the cars, setup pricing, and make money off each Mercedes Benz sold in the US. Enter the “gray market” cars. Gray market cars are cars that are imported, but not though official distributors. The gray market cars don’t have a warranty, they are not supported by a dealer network, but here is what they are……CHEAPER. In the consumer driven dollar and cents market place, the cheaper car, is the one the consumer wants.

In December 1984, Time Magazine published this article about gray market luxury cars. In the article, they mention that the change in the dollars value via the exchange rate, can mean up to a $12,000 savings for a buyer of an imported gray market car, vs a model purchased at a US dealer. They mention that as many as 50,000 automobiles could have been brought into the US in 1985.
Example: a Mercedes 500 SEL, when bought from an authorized dealer in the U.S., is about $52,000. The same model bought in West Germany and imported by a U.S. buyer goes for some $40,000 after the extra charges.
Read more: Imports: A Gray Market in Luxury Cars - TIME
There is data on the number of vehicles imported into the US though the gray market, and though official channels, and at one point the gray market was importing more cars than the official US distributors.
The grey market was successful enough that it ate significantly into the business of Mercedes-Benz of North America and their dealers. The corporation launched a successful million-dollar congressional lobbying effort to stop private importation of vehicles not officially intended for the U.S. market. An organisation called AICA (Automotive Importers Compliance Association) was formed by importers in California, Florida, New York, Texas, and elsewhere to counter some of these actions by Mercedes lobbyists, but the Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act was passed in 1988, effectively ending private import of grey-market vehicles to the United States. No evidence was presented that grey-import vehicles' safety performance differed significantly from that of US models, and there have been allegations of improper lobbying, but the issue has never been raised in court.
Mercedes Benz North America spent a million dollars lobbying congress to get the importing laws changed, to protect their interests, and money. Lately I have been mentioning this a lot. It will take a lot of money to get the laws changed. It will take a lot of money, to try and get one seized Nissan Skyline back. "



Lets get on our way to changing this ******** law.

HKYStormFront

already signed but i encourage everyone on this forum to take a minute and do the same!!

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kenchan

anyone have cliff notes?

Ron

Did u know that R33s are legal can be registered on the US? Long read, but its interesting: Nissan Skyline importation into the United States -Part 1

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houkouonchi

R33's suck though =(

All about the R32/R34

HKYStormFront

it has been put on homeland security to seek out and export cars brought to the US "illegally" and they have been with a vengeance. as long as it passes some kind of safety inspection to become road-worthy in our country (lights, horn, signals, etc) who cares? we could be spending that money elsewhere. this petition is to try to stop this action.

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cossie1600

Have you guys been overseas? Some of the vehicles smell and they are nowhere as safe as the cars in the US.

Red__Zed

closing out: It also has to pass crash test standards, and cars that have not been demonstrated compliant are not legal to import.

PapoZalsa

There is your answer

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2011 Nismo#91

That is not why you can't bring in a Skyline. You can take "European Delivery" for many luxury cars and get a cheaper price and a vacation right now. It hasn't been banned or made illegal. Its on the manufacturers website's so I don't think they are apposed to it since they facilitate it.
The reason for not being able to import them is because many models do not meet the minimum safety requirements for the year they were manufactured. The few that can be imported legally are because they meet these requirements and someone with a lot of money and a insane love of these cars paid to crash test one.

If you want to import other models you have to design and install the appropriate air bag system and crash test it. You can still import them for track use though.

Ron

None of the Skylines meet safety regulations. The reason why some R33s and R32s are legal is bc 2 companies spent the time and money to modify and crash test those cars so that they meet the standards. When they wanted to do the same with the R34s govt changed some law and they never got to be modified to meet safety specs (or something like that, its all on the link I posted before) The document of what needs to be done to bring certain year R32s and 33s can be downloaded here: http://www.nicoclub.com/articles/NHTSA-update.pdf

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bigsix

It makes sense that Mercedes-Benz would fight what/whoever was taking sales away from them.

Baer383

Come on guy sign up all most there

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Rooster89

One of the main reasons also is because the good old us of a is one of the few countries in the world where safety tests are demonstrated for non seat belt wearing occupants. Honestly, not wearing a seat belt is a personal decision and one's own detriment, the fact that we seat belt wearing citizens pay extra money for cars that meet non safety belt requirements is silly. change the safety regs, so that the tests only concern the instance where one is safety belted in, and the manufacturer and the consumer will both save money...hell so will the government.

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TypeOne

Copied from Wikipedia:

Some Americans are interested in Japanese domestic market vehicles like the Nissan Skyline. In 1999, a California company called Motorex had a number of Nissan Skyline R33 GTS25s crash-tested. They submitted their information to NHTSA and petitioned for 1990-1999 GT-Rs and GTSs to be declared eligible for import.[4] Many Skylines were subsequently imported through Motorex. This lasted until late 2005, when NHTSA learned not all 1990 through 1999 Skyline models would perform identically in crash testing. Motorex had submitted information for only the R33, but had asserted that the data applied to R32, R33, and R34 models.[4] NHTSA determined that only 1996-1998 R33 models have been demonstrated as capable of being modified to meet the federal motor vehicle safety standards, and that only those models are eligible for import. In March 2006, Motorex ceased all imports and Motorex principal Hiroaki "Hiro" Nanahoshi was arrested and held on $1 million bail on financial, kidnapping, and assault charges.


If you want to learn more about importing gray market cars, here are some helpful links.

Vehicle Importation and Certification Requirements

Here is a list of the cars that CAN be legally imported into the USA.
http://stnw.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/elig100111.pdf

Nearly, 4 out of the 20 page document covers Mercedes Benz cars. While the importation of legal cars has slowed to almost nothing, the illegal importation of cars is still in full swing. The loop hole is that companies or individuals will import cars as "parts," and then once everything arrives stateside and clears customs, the cars are reassembled and sold without titles or proper documents. Most of which can never be driven on the roads legally in the USA.