Re: s6

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

eyvind.spangen@c2i.net (Eyvind Spangen) wrote:

>Here in Norway, I guess 98% af all S4/S6 cars are wagons (Avant).
>It is like that because of some tax rules that say if you fold down
>the rear seat and install a cargo net behind the front seats in a big
>wagon (has to be at least 2200 kg maximum weight), you save 70% of the
>normal tax, but are not allowed to use the rear seat. You get green
>license plates instead of the normal white ones.
>Needless to say, almost all expensive cars available as wagon are like
>this. A '93 S4 Avant with green plates (no rear seat) is a $40000 car
>while a '93 S4 Avant with white plates (rear seat) is a $60000 car.

Ah, we used to have such a scheme in Holland, too. Ditch the rear seat,
weld the mounting holes up: hey presto- a van. Costs 40% less than the
regular car. So everyone went ahead and bought Nissan Silvia turbos (a joke
really, the regular car has no rear seat worth mentioning), Peugeot 205
GTIs, Renault 5 GTturbos, Golf GTIs, Opel Kadett GSis and anything else you
can imagine, took the rear seat out and had some cheap fun. Not only was
the special car tax removed, but there was also a cut-rate road tax for
vans.
Of course, the government didn't like that, so they changed the law: now
vans needed steel panels instead of rear windows. Looked stupid, not to
mention the dangers of reduced visibility (I had a few hairy moments in
vans because of the stupid closed-window laws).

Anyway, people overcame their irritation and bought the vans nevertheless,
so it was time for another wise government measure: the minimum load space
law. For your car to be able to remain a van (and to avoid having to pay
the stupid car tax even on used cars!) you needed a higher roof on most
small vans. Enter the 'inverted bathtub' from polyester. A brilliant
invention to elevate your roof and increase the load space... and lose all
the strenght of your car's monocoque. This spawned all kinds of
stupid-looking, bad-for-aerodynamics and otherwise inane solutions (you
should see the Dutch-market only Peugeot 205 with the rear hatch replaced
by a bulging plastic hump to convert the back into a straight edge...)

Nowadays, it's bye-bye to small vans. No longer available, no longer legal.
But wait! Our roadside assistance organisation has hundreds of these
now-illegal things as patrol cars! Hmmm... so the government ruled that it
was legal if you had more than 100 cars in this configuration. Ah, sounds
like inequality to me... and to a lot of other former van-owners, be it
private or corporate, who either had to convert these back to car spec at
considerable cost- and pay the special car tax as if it had been a new car.
So, a law suit ensued- which the government lost. Unfortunately, the days
of cheap cars are over here, but at least we won't be punished for taking
advantage of the loopholes earlier...

Not only cheap-and-cheerful cars were popular in 'van' guise, though- a
couple of months ago, I spotted a rather nice Audi 100 Avant without a rear
seat or rear windows. And Mercedeses and other expensive cars were popular
as vans here, too- no Nissan Patrol or Isuzu Trooper was sold here with a
back seat for years.

Tom (who had to drive a 'windowless' van-version Citroen BX as a company
car for two years. You could lose an articulated lorry or two in the blind
spots. Have pity!)