1974 Euro 3.0CSi on Bat again

dang said:
If it's a CA buyer I would assume they're knowledgeable with MO LLC titles, otherwise it will need to be sold out of CA. Even with a MO title/registration you need to be somewhat worried about driving around on a MO plate.
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Been doing it for years. Cops have bigger fish to fry. Half the super/hyper cars at car week run MT plates. It's a non issue...
 
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Though the car is registered in MT, it should not be an issue to re-register it in CA. As it is a 1974 vehicle, should be easy. 1975 and older vehicles are Smog exempt. 1976 and newer require smog certs. I owned a 1976 Jaguar XJ6C and smogging an old British car like that can be a bear if all systems are not working right (carbs, cats, timing, etc.). Had I owned a 1975 model of that car, I would have been home free. The BaT coupe looks beautiful, but because it is SO nice I would be afraid to take it out on the open road if preservation is the goal. If one doesn’t care, damn the torpedos and full speed ahead. My former ‘73 coupe was also Polaris but over red leather and beautiful, but it was a driver, though a very pretty one. Of course, sold mine long ago when values were much lower. I think this one will exceed $100,000 easily. My prediction is $130k. We’ll see soon enough.
 
TedS said:
It's the fact that it's a grey mkt import that's the problem. Or possible problem.
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Good point. Not sure if it would need to be retrofitted with the 1974 diving board bumpers and side marker lights for CA registration since it is a euro version vs. U.S. domestic? Someone will need to read the California regulations for grey market car registration. Maybe that’s why it is registered in MT though the car is for sale in S. Cal. Hmmm.
 
When I lived in CA - registering a car (in CA) that was not sold in the US was a real pain - let alone one that had engine/trans combo not available in CA.
And that was in the late 1980's.
I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be these days....
 
sfdon said:
Many of us who live in California have read the regulations regarding Gray Market cars issued by the state of California………..

www.dmv.ca.gov

Vehicle From Out of State Purchases - Can You Register It in California? - California DMV

If you are a California resident and acquire a new car, truck, or motorcycle from another state, it must be certified to meet California smog laws to be registered in California.
www.dmv.ca.gov www.dmv.ca.gov
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Wow…..looks to be quite a challenge probably for any sort of grey market car, even one that is 1975 or older. I would imagine there are knowledgeable people who can help shepherd a car through this process. I own a 1987 AC Mk. IV Cobra that, even though it has a EFI Ford V8 with cats, was a nightmare to get smogged in CA. Live in AZ now and am home free. It’s a blessing.
 
I was born and raised and worked for many years of my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have lived on the east coast for 20 years and there is a lot about California and the SF bay area that I miss. This kind of over-reach is not one.
 
If a car is registered in MT for example purposes, how does a licensing outfit spot a grey market car? What gives it away as one?

Would the licensing agent know that BMW CSis are grey market?
 
The DMV in California is so disfunctional, they can barely manage the basic licensing and registration of vehicles let alone manage an active, progressive program to "get" out of state registrations. How can a police officer tell if you are a tourist from MT or a tax or emissions dodge? They can't and won't. They have it much easier looking for plain jane speeders and drunk/high/crack smoking drivers. Now if your neighbor wants to play stazi and report you, that's another potential issue. That's why you should give Christmas cookies to your neighbors!
 
@tferrer - just out of curiosity -
if, for whatever reason highway-petrol stops a car with MT registration on a CA highway.
Do they not double check/compare the residence address of the owner/driver with
the vehicle registration ? Do they even bother - “as long as you admit to speeding” ? ;)
 
In Washington, there used to be a decent number of cars you would see driving around with Oregon plates. (WA registration was 2.2% of the value of the car (annually) - while Oregon was a flat rate of... $40 or so - as I recall. So the financial incentive was pretty decent to try to not pay the high WA registration $$).
There were a fair number of folks here that had access to an Oregon address and used that connection to register their cars in OR Usually these were 'regular' cars and driven frequently and regularly by the owner/driver....
I had a friend who had a neighbor who had OR plates on his cars... and he was pulled over one time by the WSP. The story is the officer also lived in that neighborhood and saw this OR registered car regularly and kept a ledger (on his own) of the times and places he'd seen this OR car (as well as others from OR). I guess when the officer reached a certain # of sightings - the officer would pull over the car the next time he saw it and see what the driver could show for being 'from Oregon'.
Well, having a WA drivers license with a local address while having a OR registration in the same name (but from Oregon) would result in a ticket....

As I recall, once ticketed, the WA DOL and DOR (Dept of Revenue) got involved and the only way out was to pay the back registration fees plus interest and penalties and ..... OUCH.... Not fun.....

FYI - Folks got sick of the high costs to register cars here so that ended some time ago. Washington now has a (mostly) flat rate registration fee so the incentives are not there any longer to play games with out of state registration (at least for financial costs). And since we don't run our cars through smog check now either - no real reason to.... as far as I can think of....

But - California is an ENTIRELY different animal.
 
m5toureg said:
@tferrer - just out of curiosity -
if, for whatever reason highway-petrol stops a car with MT registration on a CA highway.
Do they not double check/compare the residence address of the owner/driver with
the vehicle registration ? Do they even bother - “as long as you admit to speeding” ? ;)
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This is typically how you get caught. They usually don't pull someone over just because they have an out of state license plate, but if you get pulled over for any reason they could question the registration versus the owner's address. It could set in motion a followup from the DMV and then fines/penalties and even the vehicle be impounded if it's verified that the owner is playing games. They only give you a short time to register your out of state vehicle in CA. Something like 100 days. Not sure it's very high on their list of things to enforce, but the law is there in case they want to.
 
Once you officially establish residency in California, you will have 20 days to register your vehicle with the DMV to avoid late fees.
 
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