RE: Gray Market Cars

[steveb@falcon.kla.com (Steven Buchholz)]

> As far as them having these cars, I suppose it is possible to register
> the car (illegally) by buying let's say the same year 930 Turbo, and
> changing the VIN numbers (which I'm sure good old Bill has the
> connections to do).
> 
I doubt that even _they'd_ be able to get away with it ... I think that the 
EPA chose to make an example of the Porsche 959 for some reason.  I heard 
that the EPA went bananalands over a letter that was printed in AutoWeek 
saying that someone had seen a 959 on the Golden Gate bridge but lost them 
in downtown San Francisco.  I've seen 914s with body kits that made them 
look like 959s ...

The thing that makes it obvious to me that this is simply a case of EPA 
bureaucratic BS is the fact that there was a story of some poor sould that 
put his 959 into the armco at 140+ ... the car was totalled, but the 
driver and passenger survived.  Even if you buy into the failure to 
perform crashworthiness and emissions tests it still doesn't explain why
the government would not even allow the cars to be run at race tracks 
and such.  

I don't know, maybe they have a point ... I've heard tale of other Gruppe 
B racecars that are driven on the road ...

Steve Buchholz
s_buchho@kla.com
San Jose, CA (USA)