learn me grey market cars

So I am righting up a paper for collage about grey market cars.They are expecting me to talk about this subject for about 7-10 minutes or so. Any leads for this would be greatly appreciated. :)

RioRacer wrote: So I am righting up a paper for collage about grey market cars.They are expecting me to talk about this subject for about 7-10 minutes or so. Any leads for this would be greatly appreciated. :)

Why are they called Grey Market?

How do they get here, what hoops to jump through?

What percentage of Grey Market cars come from what Countries? What Country delivers the most?

What happens to these cars over their life time? Can they be resold as "real" cars?

No real insight, but I'm guessing Google is your friend.

I had a Grey Market M-5 with a three-ring-binder full of documentation.

Dan

It really depends how you are using the term. "Grey market" really means any import of vehicles into a country through channels other than the maker's official distribution channels.

In some countries this is to get around a particular tax structure, local pricing practices, etc.

In the US it's generally been to bring in cars that were not available here due to significant regulatory restrictions.

There is a good write-up of the history of grey market practices in the US at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_import_vehicle

If I was writing a paper for college, I'd check out some of the regulations, why the need to import them, and what the costs are involved in the process. A whole cottage industry was built converting grey market cars to make them EPA and/ or NHSTA compliant.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/elig092210.pdf

If I recall, there were also financial incentives - for buyers as well as importers. There were also some abuses that may have contributed to the closing of regulations allowing grey market cars (things like broom handles being painted black and installed as side impact bars). My mom loved the 380 SL she had. Belgian car - it seemed like it ran better than the US 560s and had the groovy Paris lights.

Yes, for a time you could get a grey market import for less money than the equivalent US spec car. There were a lot of variations in how cars were Federalized...my car is a '86 BMW M535i; I've compared it to a half dozen other M535i's and no two of them were 'converted' the same.

One thing they had to do was put on a catalytic converter and an O2 sensor, and then rig up the ECU so it could read the signal from the O2 sensor. Well, not long ago I discovered the O2 sensor on my car was never wired up at all...the wires from the sensor disappeared into the car's wiring harness but the ends went nowhere. Even so, it always passed emissions back when we had annual testing.

There was a whole list of other stuff that was supposed to be converted to US spec, anything from side marker lights to reinforced bumpers to replacing all the window glass so that it would have a DOT stamp on it.

racinginc215 wrote: Javelin is an expert in the field you may want to PM him.

Really? Do you have to be such an shiny happy person?

A lot of Porsches entered the country as "grey Market" cars. They're refered to as ROW cars (Rest Of World) as I found out when I bought mine. Discussion about ROW cars here on the Pelican forum. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/441504-row-cars-north-america.html

93EXCivic wrote:

racinginc215 wrote: Javelin is an expert in the field you may want to PM him.

Really? Do you have to be such an shiny happy person?

uh... What?

mtn wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

racinginc215 wrote: Javelin is an expert in the field you may want to PM him.

Really? Do you have to be such an shiny happy person?

uh... What?

Check out that one thread about importing some Aussie car of some sort. It's full of the worst kind of forum-ing. By both parties. Only one of them seems to be hell-bent on spreading it through the rest of the site, though.

thanks for all the info. I am not sure what car I will use for this yet. But thanks for the links/info