[Erik Latranyi]

Government has always been an obstacle to capitalism. Frankly, gov’t should be out of the car regulation business, but since that is not an option, let do this:

Since the US wants its car companies to sell worldwide and Europe wants its car companies to sell worldwide, the governments should get together and decide on a global auto standard. Get together with Japan, Korea, China, etc and let’s set a worldwide basic standard for autos. Then any car sold can be purchased anywhere else.

Without regulations, computers use the same architecture worldwide, allowing for global economies of scale.

Doing this for the auto industry would probably result in fewer players, but that is OK as long as the playing field is level.

[wendy1946]

I assume it’s mainly the 40 years worth of govt. regulation which make today’s small cars (in this country at least) a thousand pounds heavier than the small cars of 1960 - 1970.

[CORedneck]

I know back in the 1980's with the grey market cars, you had to do some mods on the car to make it acceptable. I know one thing was to put in the lamer US-DOT headlamps for example.

I own two vehicles that have the old standard sealed beam headlamps. I swapped out the US-DOT regulation lamps for the ECE standard lamps. What I put in was Hella H4 lamps and they are good lamps. Here in Colorao, the law on headlamps are pretty lenient but other states especially the East Coast states like VA require you to be US-DOT compliant. They get you in the safety inspections.

I would favor changing our regulations to where ECE cars are acceptable without modification.

Another item, I considered taking several months and travel around New Zealand and Australia. I would consider buying a motorcycle there and when the trip was done, bring it home but US regs get in the way.

[MichiganConservative]

Here’s a crazy idea. Let consumers drive what car companies design, build and sell. Tell the imperial, criminal, federal government to piss off.

[enduserindy]

I have worked in the auto industry for many years and can tell you the biggest problem with bringing Euro cars here is they don’t meet emission standards.