1/10/2024 0 Comments 90s jdm cars imported to usa![]() I know there is a strong anti-California attitude amongst car people, but at least the Golden State’s DMV lets you make imports 100 percent legal, albeit at great cost. Cook told us: “Vehicle owners who received these letters would need to prove the vehicles were manufactured to US standards (we would need to see the MCO and also the sticker in the door jamb).” I asked the state twice about being able to legalize the cars for Maine, but it seems that they will only accept cars that were made to be compliant, and won’t accept vehicles brought up to compliance. I’m wary of other states that are actual import car havens tightening registration requirements that slowly start killing these vehicles off, vehicles that ultimately do minimal harm to the environment or other drivers.Īs far as a path for disenfranchised Maine Delica owners to re-register their vehicles, Ms. It also serves to show that states are getting wise to the still-growing import car craze with popular late ’90s JDM cars becoming legal to import. Judging by the timeline and the haste by which the state started using the law, I wouldn’t be surprised if we started hearing from more Maine import car owners about their cars getting de-registered, well beyond Delicas. ![]() So while some versions of the Delica have prowess on trails, that is not what the state of Maine means with its legal language. It’s a similar classification to ATVs and dirt bikes. It’s very important to note that “off-road” doesn’t mean a rock crawler or Baja truck, it literally means a vehicle that isn’t meant to be used on the road, thereby off-road. ![]() It gives Maine carte blanche to interpret nearly any vehicle as an off-road vehicle. What’s most bothersome is the hastiness and vagueness about the language of the law. According to the Secretary of State’s office, the legislation that allowed this “became law a few weeks ago.” Now it seems any imported vehicle that wasn’t federally certified when it was new can be de-registered at any time in Maine. roads as long as they were 25 years old, which was already a big hurdle to bringing cars here. Import car enthusiasts have historically been able to bring vehicles onto U.S. ![]() But while this move by the government only affects a handful of people, practically speaking, for the moment the scary part is the fact that it will almost definitely expand to grab more grey-market cars. Since there are so few Delicas registered in Maine (and in America in general really), it seems truly bizarre that this model specifically would be called out. It also broadly defines off-road in 29 MRSA section 101 as a “vehicle’s design and, configuration, original manufacture or original intended use, does not meet the inspection standards of Chapter 15, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.” The way the state is exacting this power is through a state statute called 29 MRSA section 354, which prohibits the registration of off-road vehicles for non-government entities. Maine seems to be wielding the right to de-register whatever it wants, and Mitsubishi Delica van owners are the first victims. The Truth About Cars seemed to get a little more out of this representative the site quotes her broadening the definition of vehicles due to be de-registered: “Any vehicle found to be mistakenly registered would receive a similar letter to the ones sent out recently by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.” Special Assistant to the Secretary of State Emily Cook contended that “These vehicles are manufactured as off-road vehicles.” In our correspondence, pre-1995 Mitsubishi Delica vans were specifically cited as targets for de-registration. Why is the Northeastern state de-registering these vans? The official reason given to Car Bibles was that the vans fail to meet United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). And that’s where things start to look ominous for anybody who might be interested in driving a legal, non-standard import car. What nobody, including state officials, has been able to answer clearly yet is why. Maine has made headlines on almost every major car site and forum in the last few weeks for the same story: pre-1995 Mitsubishi Delicas, which should theoretically be perfectly road legal, are having their registrations canceled there.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |