How does that work?
I know NZ basically takes the stance "if it's Japanese it's ok." Didn't they used to have some pretty harsh laws on anything not made on the islands or in OZ to support car manufacturing in you're area of the world?
Uh not anymore!
Basically everything in New Zealand has to comply with the 1996 onwards safty rules. So airbags and the like have to be added. Somebody double check me on this, since I think there may have been a change last year.
As with our laws here (Australia), we have the 15 year old rule, which got turned into the 20 year rule now, which means anything goes, but it has to be RHD. This rule was originally ment for 2 door cars only, but the dipshits who wanted EVO's and the like (4 door cars) got it changed. People started importing family cars, utes and commercial vehicles which got all the major car makers and importers here upset. So it got changed. So blame the idiots who wanted their w**k w**k rally weapons
Anything younger you have to run under the RAWS system which basically means it gets modded to our safety standards (eg side impact bars, seatbelt mount points, light transmission through glass etc etc ) and has to have a emmisions check etc. This is quite expensive and is normally done in volumes of 10+ cars.
Cars that go under the RAWS system are like R34 GTR's and GT-T's, Stagea's, Chasers etc etc. The only limitation is that the car cannot have been sold here when it was brand new. Eg I want a Alfa Romeo 33 P4 and by law I cannot import one because they where sold here new. Since they only sold 54 of them here and people don't want to part with them, so I'm kinda screwed.....
As far as the import rules and regs go, the main pressure on the rules comes from the importers like Nissan and Toyota because they know that if they let anything in somebody may undercut them.
You also have the personal import scheme, which is if you have owned the car oversea's for more than 12 months and can prove it via registration and prove that you used it, you can import it with a simple check of the exhaust noise. Quite literally anything goes
And then we have limited permits etc, so you can drive whatever you have overhere for a while and take it back.
Most of the Classic Adelaide people do this, thats why over Chistmas and new years there are a lot of cool machines around here
//Having a contact on the Automotive standards board it great
Oh also the Americans didn't sign the UN charter on harmonization of vehicle standards so any car that wasn't made to comply with the US FMVSS rules its a bitch to make it comply. Aslo your OBDI rules and the like are a pain. Australia runs on the European emmision rules.
Sorry for that post guys!!!!!
