Laws regarding car manufacturing questions | FerrariChat
Buy

Laws regarding car manufacturing questions

Discussion in 'General Automotive Discussion' started by Porarri, Aug 24, 2005.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

  1. Porarri

    Porarri Rookie

    Aug 24, 2005
    24
    #1 Porarri, Aug 24, 2005
    I was just doing some research on the Lotus Elise and the Noble M12 and their quest for DOT approval for sales of cars in the US. I read that Lotus got a 3 year exemption to import after they made a few changes but Noble imports their cars as 2 units...a chassis and an uninstalled engine and is classified as a "kit car" in order to slip through DOT regs. My question is this...do Fed Motor Vehicle Safety Standards apply to all cars manufactured by independent builders in the U.S. for the general public for highway use whether they build 20 cars or 20,000 cars?

    Another question..... you see guys like Chip Foose and Coddington that build scratch cars and sell to the public. How would they be able to manufacture and sell to the general public without having to meet Fed guidlines? Is it because they generally build cars that are representations of older vehicles built before all these laws were put in place?

    These maybe boring questions but I would appreciate some insight....... I will explain why I even care later
     
  2. ou_phidelt

    ou_phidelt Rookie

    Feb 17, 2004
    30
    Charlotte, NC
    Full Name:
    Justin Jones
    #2 ou_phidelt, Aug 25, 2005
    Another question..... you see guys like Chip Foose and Coddington that build scratch cars and sell to the public. How would they be able to manufacture and sell to the general public without having to meet Fed guidlines? Is it because they generally build cars that are representations of older vehicles built before all these laws were put in place?

    i would assume so since you can get a kit cobra registered as a 40 year old car.
     
  3. mfennell70

    mfennell70 Formula Junior

    Nov 3, 2003
    609
    Middletown, NJ
    #3 mfennell70, Aug 25, 2005
    Only in a few places. In NJ, my Factory Five kit cobra is titled and registered as a 2003 "reconstructed vehicle". I am responsible for adhering to 1992 emission requirements because I used an engine from a 1992 Mustang.


    I'm not sure how you would register a Noble in NJ. They do have a process for true, self-assembled kit cars. Emissions follow the year of the engine, as I said. So a Noble, with a brand new engine, would have to be OBDII-compliant, and I suspect it is not. Also, I can only imagine the reaction when you trailer a new Noble to the specialty inspection station and try to claim you built it. The inspectors seem to have a lot of latitude and no sense of humor (and refused to take even one Krispy Kreme from me). When they see an obviously factory built car, you're going to have problems. I noticed there's a Noble in NJ in the Autoweek classifieds. I've been wondering if the seller bought it and was never able to register it.

    The short answer is "yes". The long answer is that smaller companies occaisionally get exclusions. Lotus had one in place for the Esprit, relating to the distance from the driver's head to the front interior headliner (IIRC). OTOH, I recently read that Porsche was unable to secure an exclusion from upcoming the smart airbag regs for the Carrera GT.

    I should mention that Boyd Coddington was raided last year because of the different titling schemes he was using. http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=101166
     
  4. Porarri

    Porarri Rookie

    Aug 24, 2005
    24
    #4 Porarri, Aug 25, 2005
    So it seems the smog regs are pretty cut and dry..the year engine that is used in the specialty vehicle must meet the regs that are in place the year that engine is produced for example a Cobra replica using a 2005 Mustang powerplant would have to smogout at todays standards.....easy enough. What about airbag and bumper regulations for the turn key cars? I mean they are essentially a new car produced for the general public.

    So I'm curious as to if a small manufacturer who produced 20 or so completely original cars has to meet fed guidelines on airbags and such. Could it be described as a specialty vehicle if it were not a representation of an earlier classic car?

    Thanks for all the help.
     

Share This Page