RE: Gray Market Cars

[Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com>]

>>he swaps the plates from one to the other.  He claims his system works great

I have seen the same thing quite a few times, but I also remember when
one of the S1 Quattro Coupes at the Virginia City hill climb got busted
for having plates off a ur-q (since obviously you can't register a S1
here).  The hard thing to tell with the 959 though, is that there are so
many aftermarket 959 body kits for 911's, it really becomes hard to tell
the difference sometimes, between a fake a real one from 10 feet away.
It was the same thing with the slope nose conversions companies made
(including my dad) to make a 911 look like a 930 Turbo Slope Nose.  Of
course with those cars it was easy to tell that some were fake because
they had square headlights, and the factory cars had round headlights.
Some of the aftermarket conversions also used the stock fenders, by just
chopping the top off, and then welding on a new flat piece on top.

-Mark


>----------
>From: 	audidudi@delphi.com[SMTP:audidudi@delphi.com]
>Sent: 	Friday, January 31, 1997 8:29 PM
>To: 	Mark Nelson
>Cc: 	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
>Subject: 	RE: Gray Market Cars
>
>>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 have a friend in Northern California who has three -- 3! -- Buick Grand
>National GNXs, one of which is a 49 state car and the other of which has a
>620 hp (!) modified drag motor in it.  He only registered the CA-legal one
>and the few times a year he has a hankering to drive one of the others on
>the street, he swaps the plates from one to the other.  He claims his system
>works great -- the one time he was stopped, the cop didn't check the VIN --
>and he can always claim he put the plate on the wrong car by mistake since
>they're all painted the same color.
>
>Of course, if he ever runs a light and stuffs it into a schoolbus full of
>kids, his insurance company may not be quite so gullible or charitably
>inclined!  BTW, he has several other cars (including a couple of Porsches)
>and a 10-car garage to park them in ... nice to have money, even if you've
>had to bust yer butt for it (as he has and continues to do)!
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
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>    / |      _| o    | \       _| o     Jeffrey Goggin
>   /__| | | / | | __ |  | | | / | |     audidudi@delphi.com
>  /   | |_| \_| |    |_/  |_| \_| |     http://people.delphi.com/audidudi
> _________________________________________________________________________
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