Classic Mustangs List Archive

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Mail From: (email redacted) (email redacted)


To California Mustang Owners & Classic Car Enthusiasts, here is a
copy of a letter you can sent to your own state representatives. Their
individual E-mail addresses can be obtained from the WWW.CA.GOV
website. (Your phone book should have their E-mail address also.) I
suggest you forward a copy with the appropriate blanks filled in as
quickly as possible to your lawmakers in order to increase our chances of
getting senate bill 42 passed.

Dave Kornberg (email redacted)
'65 2+2 K

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

January 8, 1997

Senator/Assemblyman __________

Dear Sir:
Quentin Kopp introduced Senate Bill 42 on December 2, 1996 which
would implement a modification of California's automobile pollution
standards. Aside from the well publicized backlash against the Smog Check
II program, Mr. Kopp has noted the inability of late sixties and early
seventies model year cars to meet the standards imposed even before the
new program.
Many of these cars are owned as collector items. They are
maintained with the utmost care and hardly driven. Owners of such cars
usually rely on more contemporary model automobiles for their daily
driving needs.
California has many privately imported collector cars, some of
which were imported under a now-defunct, "one time exemption" which
stipulated if the car was imported for private consumption and not for
immediate resale, it was only necessary to perform safety related DOT
modifications. The BAR referee system understood the exemption and granted
waivers. This is no longer true. An owner with a fifteen year history of
paid registration cannot smog or register one of these cars.
Older exotic collectible cars with all of their equipment intact
which was required at the time of manufacture have almost always failed
the smog test; these cars qualified for waivers from the referee. Again,
this in no longer true. Clean air is a good thing, but bear in mind that
there are not that many of these cars on the road. Most are not daily
drivers, and others qualify for special insurance that limits their use to
less than 2,200 miles per year. When cars can't be smogged in California,
they often get sold to owners in other states, and California loses the
sales tax and 2% registration when these cars leave the state, probably
forever.
When the original inspection law was passed in 1984 it set a 20
year cutoff limit, however the cutoff date of 1965 has not ever been
changed. Passage of SB 42 would correct this oversight and end the
application of stricter emission requirements than these cars were
manufactured to comply with.
Impact on the state's air quality would be negligible because
these cars represent a very small percentage of the 23 million registered
vehicles in California, and their number grows smaller each year.

I encourage you to support Senate Bill 42.

Sincerely,