[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
[Main General Bulletin Board | BBFAQ |
Prev by Date | Next by Date | Post Followup ]
Member Login / Signup - Members see fewer ads. - Latest Member Gallery Photos
Re: Gray market and Mercedes Posted by Bill Homer [Email] (#3427) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Bill Homer) on Sun, 4 Jan 2015 18:47:10 In Reply to: Gray market and Mercedes, Erik919kt, Tue, 16 Dec 2014 07:47:20 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
In the early 1980s the US Dollar was again gaining in value against the Deutschmark, eventually got to 3.3DM per USD in mid-1985.
I was working in Europe in the 1980s and seriously looked at buying/using/importing a German-market 190E w/ manual trans, which I could get for about $10,000 vs. the US price of about $25,000 (OK, the US models had more equipment on them, including almost mandatory auto trans). There were a lot of things that you had to change to make the car USDOT-legal, including bumper reinforcement, door beams, corner marker lights, restrictor in the fuel filler for lead-free gasoline, MPH speedometer, crappy US-spec sealed-beam headlights, etc, but kits were available to do this. The real challenge was the requirement for EPA emissions testing; this testing was done at special labs that would run your car through a prescribed test and cost about $1500 whether you passed or not.
This may not have been such a great idea for a 190E, but really paid off financially for the larger MBs, and many Americans were importing expensive grey market cars such as 560SLs. At some point the parent company forbade their German dealers from selling directly to Americans, or so I was told by my German counterparts who were helping me with the deal. There were other issues, i.e. warranty would not be honored in the US, that eventually put the kibosh on this for me.
I wound up buying my first SAAB C900 when I got home instead!
posted by 108.71.132...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.