The stars have begun to align for US car enthusiasts now that the 25-year window lines up with Japan’s golden era of cars. For those patient enough to wait two and a half decades, the 25-year rule was the only beacon of hope to owning automotive forbidden fruit. Today, importers need to perform expensive crash testing to prove non-USDM cars are safe enough to enter the United States, or obtain an official letter from a manufacturer saying they’re “substantially similar” to those officially sold in the US.īut there was one small concession made to car enthusiasts within the Imported Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act: any car can enter the US, fully exempt from federal safety and emissions standards, so long as it’s 25 years old (according to the date of manufacture, not the model year). In 1988, the Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act was passed, making it virtually impossible for importers to bring non-USDM cars into compliance. Unsurprisingly, automakers didn’t like losing US sales to this workaround, and in the late ’80s, Mercedes-Benz led a lobbying effort to stifle the importing of gray-market cars. This way, a car buyer in the US could have a Euro-market trim - often at a substantial savings - even after spending thousands to import the car from overseas and modifying it to comply with US regulations. This, in addition to a then-strong US dollar, led thousands of foreign-car buyers to the “gray market.” Gray-market cars were bought in Europe, shipped to the US and then brought into compliance with US standards in shops. This meant some models and trims - many of which were deemed more desirable by enthusiasts - weren’t sold here because manufacturers thought the profits wouldn’t justify the added expenses. Because the US has its own standards for emissions and safety, these offerings from European automakers had to be engineered specifically for the United States domestic market (USDM). As domestic manufacturers struggled to compete with imports, demand for European cars from brands like Mercedes-Benz and BMW was growing. Although Japan’s bubble economy had burst by 1992, its halo cars would continue to be produced and sold deep into the decade.Īround the same time that Japan’s economic bubble was inflating, the US automotive market was experiencing its own shift. Some of these cars - like the Honda NSX (known in the US as an Acura) and Mitsubishi 3000GT - were sold stateside, but many remained exclusive to the Land of the Rising Sun. Until this point, most Japanese cars were well-built albeit staid mass-market cars, but now every automaker had a performance car, luxurious land yacht or quirky economy car. Competition between the Japanese automakers only fanned these flames of innovation.Īs such, the Japanese automotive industry experienced a golden age. No niche was too obscure to fill, and no technology was too outlandish to pursue. This prosperous time emboldened Japanese automakers to think bigger, invest heavily in their R&D and chase a growing segment of increasingly wealthy consumers. Toward the end of 1985, after decades of steady economic growth, Japan began to experience an economic bubble driven by a stronger yen, low interest rates and aggressive speculation, resulting in a massive inflation of stock prices and real estate. Over two decades later, thanks to people like Duncan - and an allowance in a 1988 piece of legislation called the Import Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act - these cars are finally getting their due. It is a staggering representation of an auto-industry era that was marked by innovation, creativity and excess, and which was long withheld from a generation of American automotive enthusiasts who were unable to legally experience it in person, having to settle for vicarious exposure through video games and movies. His diverse collection of over 600 Japanese vehicles comprises sports cars, kei cars, vans, trucks, luxury cars and even hearses. ![]() By Duncan’s estimate, he has the largest collection of Japanese-market cars in North America. In fact, as of writing, he has 150 of them, along with hundreds of other Japanese cars and trucks from the ’80s and ’90s, parked in his warehouse in Christiansburg, Virginia. Today Duncan, now 65 years old, has his Figaro. “I didn’t know at the time that it would take twenty-five years.” ![]() ![]() “I thought, ‘Man those are cool… I gotta have one,'” says Duncan. It was there he first laid his eyes on the Nissan Figaro concept car: an aggressively retro convertible just over 12 feet long, five feet wide and powered by a one-liter engine putting out barely more than 50 horsepower. Duncan, who had been a dealer of foreign cars since the age of 19, scored a trip to Japan to visit that year’s Tokyo Motor Show. In 1989, Gary Duncan had a seemingly life-altering experience. Discounted domestic shipping + 15% off in the GP store for new subscribers.
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