Re: [MV] [MVlist] Importation of HUMMVEE...

From: islander (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2001 - 13:14:35 PDT


>Purely for discussion purposes of course...what if
>this was a kit car or home made vehicle? It wouldn't
>necessarily need to conform to the standards a
>production car would.
>

Purely for discussion <g>, I think this would lead to impounding for a
couple of years, at the owner's expense, at the very best. At the worst
it will be seized and never seen again. I just heard about someone in my
state that tried to import some environmentally green vehicle from Europe
and didn't understand that it wasn't approved of for road use here (no
safety standards tests, etc.). It has been sitting in a Customs
warehouse for over a year and the poor sod has been paying storage to the
Feds for the privilege. So not only are they out the $25,000 purchase
price, but they have legal bills and storage charges on top.

As the advice usually is on this list, don't EVER try to exploit a gray
area unless you know, for sure, that everybody else does. Even then you
want to be carefull. Remember, gray areas are only gray if the agents in
charge believe them to be. Often they think in black and white, usually
leaning towards covering their assess. That means given a choice, they
will not allow something to go through. It simply isn't worth the risk.

>If this HMMWV/MUTT (whatever) was assembled from spare
>or used parts, it would not have had a serial number
>assigned from AMG. In that case, you could title it as
>a "kit car" in the home country and import it as such.

If the parts on the "kit car" were homemade, for the most part, this
might be something that could work. But reassembling production parts to
recreate a production vehicle to me doesn't sound too much like a "kit
car". And as I said above, I doubt an official on the dock would think
so either.

Steve



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