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On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 22:37, Steven Ayres wrote: > ConstantinoT=> I never understood why people brought black market > => german cars into the country if an american version of the same or > => similar model was available. > > This is usually called 'grey market,' as in not illegal but not smiled > upon, and it's pretty common. My car came in with a US serviceman who'd > been stationed in Germany. The deal then was that if you put 10K klicks > on it, you could ship it to the US duty-free. A friend of mine bought a > Eurovan for a tour of Europe and brought it back with him on a similar > deal and saved a ton of money over buying retail at home. Duties and > subsequent retail markups on new cars are substantial coming into the US. > My Ghia was I think brought in by a serviceman. It was sold in Germany, and had its first few services in Germany. It then appeared in Bremerton, WA and showed being serviced and licensed there. It then appeared in Iowa, but registered as a T-14. This was done by owners I was told by a DOT inspector, because a T-34 could not be legally registered, as it had no emission, or crash test records. He registered mine, because of its age, the matching VIN numbers, AND, because my german documents do refer to the VIN number of the vehicle that was crash tested in Germany. We had to use Babelfish to translate the papers I have. -- Russ Wolfe '71 FB AT '66 FB MT '64 T34 (not running) '65 T1 (not running) '05 KIA Sorento SUV russw@classicvw.org http://www.classicvw.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~