The Automotive Gray Market: An Inside History

The Automotive Gray Market: An Inside History

This was a great book, that I have been meaning to post about for a while.  Ryan from Carrara Books mentioned it to me one day, so I had to look it up and purchase it. Its a pretty technical book. Definitely gets into the nitty gritty of NHTSA, EPA, and regulations related to vehicle import. I have been around vehicle importing since 1999, but anything else I have heard from the earlier times, was all mostly third hand information. 

In the 1970s, as car enthusiasts in the U.S. grew bored with models manufactured under tightening pollution and safety regulations, some innovative dealers exploited a legal loophole--designed to allow U.S. soldiers and diplomats to return from abroad with their vehicles--to import exotic cars never intended for sale in America. During the 1980s, a rise in the value of the dollar made car shopping in Europe a bargain hunter's dream. A network of unauthorized "gray market" importers and conversion shops emerged, bypassing factory channels and retrofitting cars to meet U.S. regulations and emission standards--at least in theory.

These cars had to pass through U.S. customs, a system equipped to handle only a few independent imports annually. As applications ballooned, the regulatory system collapsed. This is the story of a misunderstood but fascinating period in the automotive industry, when creative importers found ways to put American motorists in new Ferraris while the EPA and DOT were backed up with mounds of paperwork.

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