Flame away, I posted this on the "kit car" thread a few days ago and it got buried, either too stupid, a repost, or just a dying thread anyways.
Kit Car Thread
My thoughts:
I was reading through some of this stuff and got kinda interested, looked at a few other documents as well. Couldn't one hypothetically buy whatever car abroad, dissasemble it to the point where it's "car parts" and not a "motor vehicle" to avoid all the nightmare of DOT/EPA regulations, and ship the pieces here to be reassembled and registered as an "assembled-from-parts" car?
http://www.actcfl.org/pdf/HSMV_87002.pdf
Obviously, the above doesn't mean shit if the gov'ment is finnicky about importing car parts (I don't know much about this, I'm thinking you guys do), or if the DOT flips out over a non-US-compliant imported vehicle.
I don't really see why they should in the first place, the restrictions on a kit/assembled from parts car appear to be really damn minimal, and if any of you have ever gotten curious and seen just how hard it is to import a GT-R or whatever, you know how exhaustive the governments process is (crash testing, emissions, etc), not to mention those bonds for 150% the value of the car. They seem to take the attitude that it's fine to take your chances in your own homebrew deathbox, but if you want a car made abroad (with actual safety standards, albeit foriegn), go fuck yourself or wade through a quagmire of paperwork and expensive modifications.
My best guess is that they figure homemade cars exist in such small numbers that they aren't a direct threat to mainstream automobilia (I don't think that's a word), but an influx of foriegn cars would deluge the DMV with all sorts of wild and crazy shit from other countries, making it damn near impossible to get any kind of standards for US vehicles. Since building a car takes more skill, time, and probably money than just ordering one on the interweb and putting it on a boat, I can begin to see where they're coming from.
If you registered the reassembled foriegn car as homemade, it seems to me like you're willing to take all the liabilities that entails, while the DOT's process is more making it "official" and giving you the same basic gaurantees you'd get if you bought a car originally meant for the US market (i.e. the title of your car being "HomeMadeGTRLookAlikeHopeItDon'tBlowUp" versus "Nissan Skyline GTR, imported by Motorex and meeting all relevant US Saftey and Emissions Standards")
If Uncle Sam isn't willing to play ball with an "Assembled From Parts" car assembled from say, 100% Peugot 206CC parts, I suppose you could modify whatever it is you're importing enough to where it isn't enough like anything foriegn to raise any kind of suspicion or red flags. Make if faster, even.
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Anyhow, I've typed too much on this whole ramble, this is more an idle curiousity than plan of action thing.. Other than what I was guessing, anyone else think of why this might not work?