Any Pagani Zondas in the area?

If I'm not mistaken, Zondas are not street legal in the USA. I know some of their models aren't, anyway. A few guys imported them and run them illegally anyway (can you blame them?!) Good luck seeing one in the Midwest, I don't know of any around!

 

Correct. They have not been DOT approved. I think there are some loopholes that involve owning a dealership and using dealer license plates, although.

None around that I know of, but know one guy that may have the means and desire very soon.

 

Had an opportunity to visit the factory last year...............awesome is the only word i can come up with
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http://www.midwestscc.com/attachment.php?id=1897

The owner passed away, but the family took the cars to a track event earlier this year. I believe the cars are in NJ. Show and Display, and apparently via Canada.

Cars like the Zonda aren't federalized, nor can they be at this time. A lot of the problems with importing cars like the Zonda is that they could be seized at any time even with papers.

 

There is also the yellow Zonda out in SoCal that the guy runs on MFG plates. his company does something with electric cars so he was able to bring it in and license it as a company "test" car or something like that. BUt like they said earlier, of the maybe 4 or 5 in the states, none are around here. And I believe Benny Cialo (spelling?!) who passed away had two of them, one being the red one pictured before as well as a large collection of other cars. Cool story about how he sent a hand written letter to Horacio Pagani stating that the Zonda was the most incredible car he had ever driven and put a check for $2000 in the envelope with the letter telling him to take all the guys at Pagani out for a nice dinner to thank them for making such a brilliant car.

 

I've seen a few in Canada --- my nearby neighbor has a yellow one up here in Montreal. But, I've never seen any in the States.

 

As far as I know,the "Show and Display" program does not yet allow Paganis to enter the U.S. However if a foreign resident and citizen wants to come to the U.S. for 6 months, they are allowed to bring a car. That car can be a VW made in Mexico or a Pagani made in Italy. Remember Stefan Erikson and his crashed Enzo? Both that car and the SLR had plates from the UK.

There have been a few illegal Paganis here. One was owned by a friend. He had the ex-Wyclef Jean car.

 

I find it amazing that a Lotus elise can come in under an exemtion but nothing can be done for the Zonda. I expect it's another example of a government bureaucracy in action. Can anyone explain this to me please?

 

Lotus currently sells 1100 cars in 2010 worldwide, but has been much higher in years past, particularly when he Elise finally was brought to the US. 1/3 of all Lotus sales happen here.

Pagani makes about 13 cars per year.

Lotus has a far greater incentive to jump through Government hoops, although we keep hearing how Zonda is making a USA bound variant, not unlike the Koenigsegg CCX; which I believe has been a flop here.

 

Here's the yellow Zonda at Supercar Sunday in March 2010. It was a crazy day - a Lambo Reventon was there too, but the Zonda got everybody's attention when it rolled in.
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That kind of explains the lotus. I didn't put it in the previous post but how does one explain the mclaren f1. Those were never federalized but one can have them modified enough to make them road legal. Why couldn't you do the same thing with a zonda?

 

Actually I think I just found the answer to my above question concerning the mclaren f1.

The following is a cut and paste from this site:
http://www.luxury4play.com/european-auto/42351-anyone-here-know-anything-about-mclaren-f1-27.html

It is addressing the interesting anomoly of mclaren f1 fereralization. It is talking about a '97 f1 that came up for auction a couple of months ago and some possible issues with dot legality. For full context you can click the link above.


"To break it down in the simplest of terms, this car is not a 1995 - instead it was built in 1997. It was imported to the USA that year along with 6 others through a company called Amerispec Corp in Connecticut as an "Ameritech F1". At the time the 'Show or Display' laws had not been enacted so there was not a legitimate method for importing a car which had not been federalized like the F1.

One of the things that occurred when Amerispec brought these cars in was to claim they were the manufacturer of the cars. In doing so, they supplied each one of them with a new VIN that bears no similarity to the McLaren one, except the last three digits - in this case '062'. In each of these new VINs they marked the 10th position as an S which equates to a model year of 1995 even though 5 out of the 7 cars had been built in 1996 or 1997 instead. The most likely reason for doing this was to bypass the requirement to conform to the EPA's OBD-II standards which were put in place for cars built in 1996 or later - something that wouldn't have been possible at that time.

It is the Ameritech VIN that has been used to register this car in California. This is not necessarily illegal as that's how the federal government originally allowed its importation but it is not 100% accurate either. If I were a potential bidder for a car like this it is something I would want disclosed prior to the auction. I know that some owners of these cars have experienced challenges in the past with registration and insurance because of the dual VINs they have. "

 

Yeah... more or less. DOT can wave crash safety for individual cars (and they do). However, EPA is virtually impossible to have waved.

The Ameritech imported cars (look for pictures around the net for how ugly they are) are just as 'legal' as the Motorex R34 Skyline GTR's... in paper only. That said, they do have the documentation.

Once the Zonda production run has ended, you could see more Zonda's in the USA...