by 89ARIES » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:47 am
I guess part of our saving grace at the moment is that the government would be stretched thin trying to take every car they can find. However, an "expert" in smog told me something last weekend that had me worried. He said that in 2010, the government of Obama is going to reduce the smog parameters so severly that almost every car left between 1980 and 2000 will be immediately scrapped. New cars will have to go through an annual test with restrictions so tight that some of them will fail. The United Arab Emirates has officially refused to register any old car before 1988 in a new law that goes into affect this month. However, most people in the UAE don't really care anyway. Only certain models will be exempt on a case by case basis. Cars not considered classics or "beaters" will taken off the road permanently.
I can't believe it, but its true, there is a war between the government and the owner of his personal property, the automobile.
I fear the restrictions will so speed up that we will lose our classic car hobby for 80s cars. 80s cars in California are under a mandatory lifetime smog requirement thanks to Swartzanegger who made it a law in 2004 that only cars before 1976 were smog exempt. A ridiculous, and arbritary cut-off date.
Isn't funny how the 80s cars are disappearing, people don't care, and then they will when they are all gone! We will have K-cars if I can do anything about it.