Michigan has recently joined a growing list of states with a weird obsession for banning tiny vehicles imported from Japan. Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Georgia have each passed laws or enacted policies that limit or ban the use of over 25-year-old legally imported cars in their states. Michigan is following the lead set by Massachusetts as it is now banning vehicles that aren’t Kei trucks like the Suzuki Jimny and larger vehicles like the Mitsubishi Delica. The reason is just as nonsensical as the Massachusetts ban as Michigan is simply showing that it doesn’t even know what a “mini truck” is.
This news comes to us from import vehicle activist Dan McMahon. He’s been putting in a lot of work organizing the enthusiast response in Massachusetts, but he’s also out there advocating for the reversal of bans and restrictions in all states.
The State of Maine was the first to implement then-new recommendations from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators in June 2021. Maine Director of Vehicle Services Nikki Bachelder authored part of the now-infamous Regulation of Off-Road Vehicles: Best Practices pamphlet, which instructs all AAMVA member states–and that’s all U.S. states, Mexico, Canada, Washington D.C. and the Virgin Islands–to ban any vehicle that was not originally built to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The document also specifically calls out over 25-year-old mini trucks.
Maine went through the work of passing a law that automatically brands any vehicle not built to FMVSS as an off-road vehicle. Maine doesn’t allow off-road vehicles on the road, so it doesn’t matter if you have a Mercedes-Benz A-Class from Europe or a Toyota Century from Japan, Maine has deemed it unfit for road use.
Rhode Island was next but it was a little softer, choosing to ban just Kei vehicles of all types through DMV policy rather than the passage of a new law. Most states with some sort of imported vehicle restriction on their books have specifically targeted Kei trucks, basically to the letter of the AAMVA’s recommendation.
However, in recent times things have been getting confusing. Back in June, the state of Massachusetts began banning vehicles imported from Japan. The state says it’s just banning Kei trucks and Kei vans. However, its method of identifying a Kei truck is not through its size or classification, but the length of its VIN and through a pre-determined list of models the state thinks are Kei trucks.
The problem is that for starters, Japanese market vehicles do not have 17-digit VINs, but unique chassis identifiers. These chassis codes are shorter than the 17-digit VINs that America has been using since 1981. For example, my 1989 Suzuki Every has an 11-digit chassis identifier. Even a Japanese car from the 2000s isn’t going to have a 17-digit VIN, so Massachusetts is effectively banning all Japanese imports even if it’s saying it’s just targeting the Keis.
The other problem is that Massachusetts has no idea how to define a Kei. It’s not hard to find the regulation, either. Keis are the smallest class of road-legal cars in Japan. Kei vehicles cannot be longer than 11.17 feet, cannot be wider than 4.86 feet, taller than 6.56 feet, and cannot have an engine larger than 660cc. You’ll also find Keis making 63 HP or less.
Instead, Massachusetts says that Kei vehicles will have those shorter “VINs,” documents in Japanese, and will be older than 25 years old. Also, the state published a list of example Keis, which include vehicles that either don’t exist or are obviously larger than Kei size.
Michigan’s Pure Confusion
If you’re infuriated by the apparent ineptitude of the Massachusetts government, it would appear that the Bay State isn’t the only one that has no idea what a Kei truck is.
Back in June, reader Dogapult sent me a letter indicating that Michigan has started its own ban on Kei trucks. Unlike Maine, Michigan has not passed a law banning imports. Instead, like many other states, it’s reinterpreting existing laws to make a new DMV policy.
This summer, Michigan has been denying the registration of new Kei trucks while revoking the registrations of Kei trucks that were already titled. Enthusiasts in Michigan are finding themselves in the same situations as Kei owners in other states, basically left with expensive paperweights.
Michigan was citing one law in its documents: That law is MCL – Section 257.217i, Michigan Vehicle Code Act 300 of 1949:
257.217i Issuance of vehicle identification number and certificate of title for assembled vehicles; requirements; safety study; “assembled vehicle” defined.
Sec. 217i.(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this act, the secretary of state shall, upon an applicant’s payment of the proper fees and submission of all documentation required by the secretary of state, issue a vehicle identification number in the same manner as provided in section 230 and a certificate of title to an assembled vehicle that satisfies all applicable requirements of this act, if the assembled vehicle contains all of the following equipment:
From my previous entry:
The law then goes through a long list of items a vehicle needs to be legal in Michigan. A lot of it makes sense like at least one headlight on each side of the vehicle, at least one taillight, a license plate light, a horn, seatbelts in model year 1965 and newer vehicles, and brakes. One thing that’s a bit odd is that Michigan requires road vehicles to have a differential gear, which seems oddly specific.
The part that we care about is right here, emphasis mine:
(5) As used in this section, “assembled vehicle” does not include either of the following:
(a) A military surplus vehicle designated by the federal government as off-road use only.
(b) A gray market off-road minitruck.
(c) An all-terrain vehicle that has 4 wheels and is equipped with a straddle seat.
Yes, you read that correctly. Michigan appeared to have been confusing road-legal unrestricted Kei trucks with the 25 mph speed-restricted off-road-only mini trucks that are imported for farm or utility use. Sadly, Kei truck owners didn’t even get a chance to fight as the state automatically canceled their titles.
Now, Michigan is technically expanding its ban and now the state is using different logic. Dan sent me two denial letters, one that banned a Honda Acty from the road and another that banned a Suzuki Jimny from the road.
There’s a third letter out there from the owner of a Mitsubishi Delica as well. You’ll note that a Suzuki Jimny is a Kei SUV, not a Kei truck and the Delica is a vehicle far larger than Kei size. That doesn’t matter to the state of Michigan.
This time around, Michigan claims that its ban is based on directions provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding mini trucks. There are numerous public-facing documents from the NHTSA on this subject, and one of them was hosted on the AAMVA’s website for years. In it, the NHTSA does indeed indicate that mini trucks do not meet FMVSS and are not endorsed for road use. However, the NHTSA also says that it can’t stop you from importing a mini truck after it’s 25 years old.
In the eyes of the NHTSA, mini trucks are either 25 mph speed-limited machines used on farms and colleges or are over 25 years of age. Alright, so the Kei trucks in Michigan are over 25 years old, so why are they banned?
Michigan recognizes that these vehicles are legal on a federal level, but notes that it has the right to determine what vehicles can and cannot drive on its roads:
MDOS has been approached to title mini trucks as a vehicle that may be registered for road use based upon the fact that a mini truck is imported as a motor vehicle more than 25 years old and exempt from the requirements to meeting Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). The 25 year or more distinction relates to the importation of the mini truck, and whether it is eligible to be imported under the exemption to meet FMVSS. Based on information available from NHTSA a mini-truck older than 25 years can be imported as either exempt from FMVSS or as an off-road vehicle not subject to FMVSS. For purposes of titling the vehicle in Michigan, the age of the vehicle does not change the determination that the vehicle should be titled as off-road use only.
Once again, there are a couple of problems here. It seems Michigan is not aware that 25 mph mini trucks and unrestricted Kei trucks aren’t the same thing. A Kei truck can safely do the speed limit of most roads, unlike a speed-limited mini truck (below).
For example, my 1989 Suzuki Every tops out at 70 mph and will cruise at 60 mph. That’s not good enough for an Interstate, but should be just fine on most non-Interstate roads in any given state. A Kei truck is more capable and arguably safer than something like a Ford Model T, and the state has no problem titling those.
Like Massachusetts, Michigan is acting as if it has no idea what a Kei truck is, in spite of having a list of actual Kei trucks that includes:
Suzuki Carry
Subaru Sambar
Honda Acty
Mazda Scrum
Daihatsu Hijet
But, it’s also revoking the registrations of vehicles that aren’t Kei trucks or are in an entirely different class of vehicle. As I said earlier, Michigan isn’t even giving enthusiasts a chance to explain. The state is just canceling their titles for road use and sending them titles for off-road use.
Enthusiasts Fight Back
Michigan’s enthusiasts have had enough.
Michigan enthusiast and attorney Kevin Burton intends to take on the state. In June, fellow enthusiast Alec Davies launched a GoFundMe campaign to fund at lawsuit. As of today, that lawsuit fund stands at $9,325 of its $10,000 goal and they expect to file the lawsuit this week.
As anyone who has gone through the headache of a lawsuit can tell you, suits don’t work in real life like they do on television. They can drag out for a year or more, drain you mentally and financially, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll win. As my wife and attorney Sheryl will tell you, the state effectively has unlimited resources whereas you do not. The state could just run out the clock until you run out of cash.
To give you an example of this, the Georgia JDM enthusiasts have been suing their state since last year, but the best they were able to get thus far was proposed legislation that would have treated Kei trucks like side-by-sides. As of writing, not even that has passed and the lawsuit is in a holding pattern.
Enthusiasts in Texas and North Carolina have been successful in overturning their Kei bans by educating and collaborating with their state officials. Massachusetts enthusiasts also succeeded in getting their state to review its policy, but we don’t know what will happen just yet. Hopefully, Michigan enthusiasts will be victorious in its lawsuit.
As always, you can get involved by joining advocacy groups on Facebook, calling up lawmakers, and maybe donating to funds if that’s your kind of jam. Hopefully, one day you can import a car and not have to worry about if it’s going to be randomly singled out by your state.
(Images: Manufacturers, unless otherwise noted.)
Michigander here:
We’ll do this dumb shit but let side-by-sides drive on almost all roads like real cars? Seriously? We’re so stupid sometimes.
Yeah up north or in the UP I see what all the time, or some really sketchy trucks that aren’t even just ragged – straight up dangerous…
Can we stop using the whole “and they’re fine titling a Model T, and that’s more dangerous!” line? A legislator won’t read that and think “Oh, I’m wrong, I’ll correct my actions.” They’ll think “Great idea! We should ban old American cars too!” Fight the law on its lack of merits, not by giving the other side more ammunition.
Every time I read one of these posts, my stress levels over my Alto Works’ title being revoked get higher and higher. I’m glad there is someone already gearing up to fight this nonsense, but who knows if it’ll be in time or effective.
Can’t you just register them as “historic” vehicles (vintage)? I don’t if you have such vehicle class in the US or particular states, but here in the EU there are options to register older cars using historic/classic exemption.
They usually come with limited miles per year and or limited to weekend driving only.
Michigan Historic registration updated this year to be able to be used as general transportation from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and for car shows, club events, or to the mechanic the rest of the time. In reality, nobody’s checking.
My ’29 Chevy is registered this way using an original ’29 Michigan plate. If I drive outside obvious parameters I highly doubt anyone would notice unless there was an accident, and even then, there’s always a show or reason *somewhere*.
Yeah… It won’t be easy to convince me this isn’t the car industry lobbyists’ work. They’re coming for your older cars, all of them. Japanese imports are low hanging fruit that they can apply blanket bans to based on confusing/vague directives. It’s also a great chance to curb a growing market that directly threatens their bottomline. But here’s the thing: this effectivly gauges the public’s reaction to title revoking/bans and helps laying down the framework for other bans that will help automakers move more units. Because they’re basing this on safety standards, who’s to say the next blanket ban isn’t for all cars without airbags from factory? Or carbureted cars because of the environment? Sure, you’ll have pay-to-play laws that will allow rich guys to keep using their unmodded classics legaly – we already have those where I’m from, to some extent. But the rest of the people, who for one reason or another are still daily driving 3-4 decades old cars, sadly I won’t be surprised if they’re the next target of title bans.
I guess that weirdly specific differential gear requirement doesn’t apply to motorcycles or tricycles? Or only applies to tricycles with two driven wheels?
I wonder if they know that some EVs have separate drive motors for each driven wheel? No differential gears there.
What I don’t see is the pushback against their contention that every vehicle that doesn’t meet FMVSS regulations should be banned. That includes every vehicle made before 1966 when FMVSS was started.
I think the difference would be those vehicles were legally allowed to be sold in the US as new cars. The vehicles being banned never were.
Just waiting for some other state to become the new Vermont for a loophole as a cash grab, charge like $200 or some craziness for non-resident registration, require a title, mail you your reg, everybody can go about their business.
South Dakota already does this.
What is great is the Suzuki Jimny / Samurai and the Mitsubishi Delica / Wagon / Van were sold in the U.S. in the 80’s.
Suzuki – Yes
Mitsubishi – No
https://youtu.be/Gli–lb5Gmg?si=90BPSkwyiH7JwdI4
Autoweek review
Ahhhh – I didn’t even remember that.
Of course it happened when I was stationed in Japan – where real Delicas roamed the archipelago freely….
😉
Man, America, for the Land of the Free™, y’all sure love banning things.
Land Of The Free To Think Like Me.
Amazingly, you never see the mUh FrEeDuMb crowd say much about these deliberate attacks on personal freedoms (but will gladly drive around with handwritten “sovereign citizen” plates because they’re “travelling, not driving”, go figure).
Is there some way to put heavy political or legal pressure on AAMVA to cease and desist this? Lawsuits of harassment or some such thing?
Proper, LEGAL ways.
My guess is that it would be and complicated and possibly expensive to gain any traction. AAMVA is an association exclusively for motor vehicle administrators, read: government officials, often political employees and state employees, tasked with managing motor vehicle departments and applying laws related to motor vehicles. In other words, AAMVA is not beholden to mere mortals. They know better than the average driver or automobile enthusiast, and are actively engaged to remind us all that they know better and to force us to comply with their views.
You would probably have to create an organized counter-lobbying and advisory organization with means under transparency and citizens’ board involvement rules (which vary state-to-state) to gain leverage and checks against AAMVA. That will take a lot of time and non-trivial amounts of money.
The faster way would be to cast AAMVA in undeniably bad light via mass media — if some sort of financial or serious political corruption or illegal influence over motor vehicle departments could be linked directly to AAMVA activities were exposed, it could make motor vehicle departments and lawmakers want to back away from them. (I’m not saying this exists!) But there are likely petty gains to be made from siding with AAMVA; it’s a political world they run in. The trouble is getting someone to investigate thoroughly to find even minor but “stinky” activities in order to turn sentiment. There’s just not a lot of political capital to be gained for investigative reporting into the admittedly boring world of motor vehicle bureaucracy. It’s not like uncovering politician’s extramarital affairs or their kickbacks from big political action committees or corporate sponsors. Although finding out if AAMVA gets money from corporate or PAC interests might be a start. But again, finding a reporter or news organization interested in picking apart AAMVA isn’t going to be easy; it will probably take a very slow news day for them to even look at the suggestion.
Then let’s go after the money. Get a list of the donors to these political people and ask them on camera why they are supporting government overreach or whatever buzzword that embarrasses them. Donations dry up and they don’t get reelected. Other politicians run on reversing the decision and boom. Win.
Let’s not limit ourselves.
I’ll leave that to you.
The defense should compare some of the larger kei cars to a 1950 military jeep….
The powersports lobby is undoubtedly behind this. No one wants to pay new car prices for a Kawasaki golf cart that isn’t street legal when they can buy a Honda Acty for a fraction of the price AND use it on the road legally
Keis are a threat to powersport sales.
I’m confused by this line of thinking because you can still legally drive the Kei cars off road, so they are still the cheap alternative to powersports mobiles.
But the inconvenience of not being able to drive on public streets!
At least in Wyoming, we have more utv’s than cars in some places. It’s insane, my Cybertruck is hungry, I need to keep it muzzled.
Oh Michigan.
Can’t take all the clapped out junkers off the road because ‘effort’?
Can’t stop people without license/insurance/plates from driving on your roads?
Can’t even take the derelict cars from the side of the interstate?
Well, have I got an idea for you. Why not claim a ‘safety win’ by administratively removing Kei cars?
All it takes is someone at the DMV, being paid minimally, to just start arbitrarily revoking ownerships.
Instant win!
Besides: you’d only upset a few dozen Kei owners, you can easily ignore them.
It’s also way easier and faster than trying to patrol the hundreds of thousands of unsafe vehicles already on the road held together with bailer twine, duct tape, and rust.
Inspections, despite the issues they have with shops being incentivized to “find” issues since the state doesn’t pay anywhere near enough to cover costs, do work to keep the worst of the worst off the road.
We don’t have inspections in Michigan.
Nobody wants to grab that hot potato. Unless it can be shown to lower insurance rates by a good bit. Then they’ll be all over it like melted butter.
Michigan will never have inspections as long as the major US auto manufacturers are headquartered in Detroit.
Cars are safe. Period. And they will lobby the politicians to ensure that.
Our roads are also constantly serving to MAKE our cars unsafe and out of compliance with monstrous pot-holes ruining tires and suspensions, chip-and-seal breaking glass, and unfathomable tons of salt rusting everything within sight. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me for a government to create a problem through lack of spending that we then have to pay more out of pocket to fix the consequences of.
Not sure what my point was after all.
Carry on.
It all serves to sell newer and bigger SUVs.
Circle of life.
It’s not about safety, it’s about control freaks, mostly Ds but along with Rs, bathing in power. They don’t like you and your power to choose how to live.
I mean, I wouldn’t even go that far. I was (briefly) a federal and slightly prior to that a state employee, and it’s basically “Go to nice conferences, and pass laws the nice people at those nice conferences want me to pass in order to continue to get to go to nice conferences.” I couldn’t accept gifts over $20 (I think it’s $25 now), which meant no baseball games or even pricey beer, but if a presumably nonprofit hosted a conference that we could go to for “continuing education,” you better believe we did.
Bureaucrats also have to justify their jobs. You’ll note that nowhere, anywhere, on either side of this discussion is any actual crash data. That’s because Kei cars are so relatively rare that they don’t even register anything of statistical significance. This is “doing something” that will irk only a tiny constituency that is almost guaranteed not to be single-issue on this topic. In other words, no leader will get un-elected on account of this, no bureaucrat will lose a job or prestige over this, no legislator will be scolded or censured by his committee on account of this.
It’s the perfect way to make work for the bureaucracy, simplify the VIN database (the short version: AAMVA uses a very awful piece of software supplied by OpenText to handle interstate VIN inquiries for participating states, which are practically all of them, and forbidding non-US VIN’s helps them reduce their operational costs of running it; it’s essentially paying for lobbying to get legislators/DMV’s to enact policy that makes it easier for AAMVA to keep more of the money it takes from the states to run this service), and give appearance of doing something in the name of safety.
Bureaucracies do this all the time with things that aren’t cars as well, oftentimes just running off the lobbyist template and occasionally making laws that are impossible to adhere to or impossible to implement. One example here or here.
This is the correct answer.
Mid-level (Canadian) bureaucrat here. I resent the suggestion that I ever take action intended to “justify my job”…if anything, public servants are desperately overworked for what we’re expected to deliver. Nonsense like this always, *always*, comes from the politicians or their Deputies, and those of us implementing it are constantly yelling up the chain why it’s a bad idea.
Hear hear! My job is to protect the homeowners from their builder/developer by making sure they follow our rules. Most of the rules came about because some developer did something stupid and someone got hurt. The my Chief Engineer undermines me, allows that same stupid act, and hopefully I can retire before someone gets hurt.
I’ve been a federal employee (in one capacity or another) for 27 years. You’re pretty-much spot-on. So many people are quick to assign malice to government action; but the truth is it’s almost always apathy, incompetence, or greed (the closest to malice).
Most things like this are the result of someone being assigned to do something (where they have no subject matter knowledge)and are left to navigate Byzantine, often conflicting rules and regulations. You can probably guess where the apathy comes from in the above scenario.
Finally we get to greed, but it usually isn’t what you think. In this cases like this it’s usually someone looking for annual appraisal or promotion fodder making changes just for the sake of change. In the military we used to say tomato g like this was dumb enough to change an eagle to a star…
BTW, that last line is supposed to say “In the military we used to say SOMETHING like this was dumb enough to change an eagle to a star.”
Autocorrect went apeshit and I caught it after the edit window.
I did look into possible political connections but didn’t find anything specific coming from party lines. Honestly, both sides seem to be pretty ignorant on this issue, save for the random car enthusiast politician. The AAMVA is constructed of DMV admin from every state, both red and blue. As such, both red and blue states have enacted these bans.
I have examples of how weird this gets. North Carolina had a ban on its books for a while, through both Democrat and Republican rule, but it finally got overturned in 2019 while the state was technically blue. Wisconsin officially has a kei truck ban (but a separate policy makes them somewhat legal again) that has survived both blue and red state governance.
Texas was the same way but overturned its ban this year while the state is red. Yet, Georgia, which is red right now, banned Kei vehicles and is actively fighting against legalizing them. For another curveball, the successful response to the Texas ban was actually bipartisan!
A Republican tried to overturn Maine’s ban and did get some Democrat support, but the bill still died.
Honestly, I think this is an issue where both sides should come together against their state governments. We all have a common goal, here! 🙂
That would be nice.
I’m willing to bet the powersports lobby is behind this. Kawasaki, Polaris, etc. No one wants to pay new car prices for a lifted golf kart that isnt street legal when they can pay a fraction of the price for a used Acty and drive it on roads legally
Keis are a threat to their sales
They aren’t.
I linked the Form 990 downthread.
Nobody is cross-shopping the 550,000 ATV sales made last year against the 4,000 kei-class vehicles that were imported.
As somebody that lives in Utah, where UTVs and Kei cars are both street legal, nobody is trying to lobby to ban Keis and where it would be worthwhile for the manufacturers to potentially get Kei cars banned, nobody is trying to do so. The bans are happening in places where AAMVA has influence- not where ATV sales are being made (New York?).
Just claim they are guns, no problem now
Concealed (Suzuki) Carry
Michigan doesn’t have constitutional carry, unfortunately.
I can drive my POS rusted 1995 Mercury Tracer on the highway with no issues but a kei truck is illegal… cars with no bumpers are fine too. Michigan doesn’t even have inspections, its not a safety concern for sure.
Every time I see one of these articles because the DMVs don’t actually care about making the roads safe. The number of cars I see drive by every day with illegal mods or unsafe conditions is now close to the same as the number of legal/safe cars I see.
If the parked an 80’s Delica next to a modern Ford F-150 mega cab crew super, I can understand why they would think it is a kei van.
All this while in Oklahoma you can buy a brand new Kei truck and drive it anywhere but the highway.
Wasn’t David Tracey’s postal jeep deemed legal in Michigan?
Yep. It should have been rejected just based on the fact it was made in Ohio!
Hey! Those would be fighting words if I gave a damn! But I don’t, so carry on.
Dicks
I’m not government. But did the State Legislature pass legislation to give the DMV/BMV/SOS, etc the authority to create unilateral bans on specific vehicles? Because without specific laws that allow this, it seems like a sidestepping of the legislative process.
And would Chevron being overturned force that into lawmakers hands? Or am I completely bungling the process here….
Federal vs. State, I think? But I’m Canadian so *shrug*
Most of these states are using existing laws to enact their bans. In this case, Michigan quotes a law which states that it has the right to reject titles and registration if it believes there’s something legally wrong with them.
The federal government does agree that states have the right to dictate what vehicles are legal and which ones are not. It’s part of why you’ll see side-by-sides just casually driving down the road in Utah but you won’t see that in most other places.
I continue to be puzzled at the legality of side-by-side vehicles for road use in certain states. These vehicles do not meet ANY of the Federally mandated safety or emissions regulations that bona fide, built-for-road-use vehicles must meet. The EPA has cracked down on coal-rolling diesels and modified gassers. Why aren’t they contesting the registration of new off-road vehicles for road use?
Having a clear understanding of what these cars are is kei
These keicar bans suck, but Michigan’s is the least surprising, given the industry it wants to protect 🙁
Other states’ keicar bans are aimed to protect the UTV/SxS industry, as some of those cost more than a car!
I say give Michigan the middle finger by buying one of the Rangers in today’s Shitbox Showdown, drive to Ford HQ, drive to GM HQ, drive to Stellantis HQ, drive to Lansing while blowing the horn and flipping them off!
See, I was wondering where I could “find the money”, so I went to their website.
I was there 10 seconds before I hated them fully. IF you don’t, however, you can go to their store (https://www.aamva.org/about/aamva-store) and get a hat.
Ugh.
So, their Vision:
“Safe drivers
Safe vehicles
Secure identities
Saving lives!”
WTFBBQ sauce? Maybe the mission would help:
“Serve North American motor vehicle and law enforcement agencies to accomplish their missions”
Uh. Okay. So this place gets paid to think FOR the administrators. That begs my question, who is paying AAMVA to think what they want?
Thank you, Mercedes, for staying on top of this. I am glad to have something to hate today.
“Serve North American motor vehicle and law enforcement agencies to accomplish their missions”
As an outsider I always enjoy it when a person or organisation in the USA forgets about all the other countries in North America.
Because this is the only map many Americans can remember:
https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BRM3036-World-According-to-Reagan_lowres-3000×2296.jpg
“IF you don’t, however, you can go to their store (https://www.aamva.org/about/aamva-store) and get a hat.
Ugh.”
Order $5000 worth of hats ‘n stuff, get free shipping!!
If car and UTV dealerships are funding this bullshit, I have a question for them- How many sales do you think you will get from this? Did it occur to you that the people buying JDM cars and trucks might specifically want a JDM car or truck?
Normies are not buying vehicles with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle and features that do not cover what American drivers typically expect to save a little money. To steal a current political theme, Americans who buy JDM vehicles are weirdos. They want something that the regular US market does not offer. Someone browsing for a Honda Acty will not go out and buy a Maverick because that’s as close as you can get if the Acty is banned. A UTV equivalent with a full cab and even some of the capabilities of a kei truck is absurdly expensive. No, the JDM enthusiast you just cock blocked wont reward you with a sale. They won’t buy anything at all. Maybe they will go private market and buy an MR-2 if they can’t get a Sera. Either way, you won’t get a dime out of them. You’re just being an asshole.
There’s a rampant theory in the comments that this is being funded by SxS/UTV dealers.
They don’t care at all. Polaris did 6 billion in offroad sales last year. Over half a million total UTV units were solid (by all entities – Honda, Polaris, Bombardier, etc.).
Meanwhile, total number of Kei cars imported? Fewer than 4,000 last year.
Nobody’s cross-shopping 20k UTV’s with 5k Kei-cars.
It’s simply not on the competitive radar of anyone at Polaris or Bombardier. Especially given where UTV sales are pretty good, there have been 0 inroads on banning Kei cars.
The 40MM+ AAMVA gets from running their VIN tables dwarfs the less-than-half-a-million they get from other sources.
As I said in a comment above; incompetence, apathy, or greed. And I’m not talking corporate, backroom dealing greed. I mean upper-middle management “look I did a thing, I deserve a promotion!” greed…
It’s Michigan. Given that they also recently enacted some nebulous laws about vehicles in disrepair, I’m sure Michigan’s policy on Kei cars is deliberately, adversarially vague.
What a bummer, though. Especially since if there’s any state in the country that has the industry expertise to keep cars like that going from a fabrication and machining standpoint, it’s Michigan.