Bill could launch new American classic car industry | Fox News
There could be more classic cars hitting the road soon. Cars that look like classics, that is.
The Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015, introduced this month in the House of Representatives, would allow small companies to produce and sell ready-to-drive replicas of classic cars without subjecting them to the prohibitively expensive safety and emissions tests the major automakers’ vehicles must undergo.
Hobbyists build hundreds of Shelby Cobra, Ford “Deuce Coupes” and other vintage clones each year. State-by-state laws today allow the sale of component “kits” which must be assembled by the buyer or a third-party shop. Under the new rules, registered companies would be allowed to produce and sell up to 500 finished cars in the U.S. each year that would carry a federally issued Vehicle Identification Number.
The bill, H.R. 2675, co-sponsored by Reps. Mark Mullin (R-Okla.) and Gene Green (D-Texas), is supported by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), which represents the kit car and aftermarket parts industry. It would require these cars to use modern engines that have already been certified by their suppliers to meet current emissions standards, but it would exempt them from the most stringent federal safety regulations.
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