Unless you live on Catalina Island, my bet is that you can't license it for the street.

It's a shame. I'd own one in a minute set up for snow days.

Once it’s 25 years old, you can import anything you want and register it. That kei is a 96.

https://helpspanish.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-278?language=e...

In Canada, the rule is just 15 years, which is why you’ll see more Keis here

There’s the 25 year rule and then there is California. In NC I can import any 25 year old car, when I was in CA it still needed to get a sign off from the state BAR. They work on a different set of rules. You can register it in another state without the hassle you just risk getting tickets for not being CA registered.

>There’s the 25 year rule and then there is California.

Exactly.

I remember in the DMV regulations that there's a special dispensation for Kei cars that essentially defines Catalina. 'An island over xxx square miles in size' sort of thing.

It used to be big fun here (before they went to 1975 and earlier gasoline engined cars going to not being inspected) if you had a car that was incapable of passing even when new.

I'm actually quite surprised that they don't check date codes on tires and require new seat belts every so many years.

It surprises me honestly. North Carolina does emissions and a safety inspection, there are quite a few cars on California roads that would definitely not be considered road legal here. Although to be fair our 25 (20 maybe?) year emissions exemption is rolling, so cars that turn 25 that new year are now exempt as well. It’s kind of nice.

Yeah, there's absolutely no "inspection" whatsoever in California, other than emissions testing.

Of course, if you're building a kit car or rebuilding a salvaged car or any number of edge cases, BAR has to certify the vehicle, but for a "normal" car you can get away with almost anything. Bald tires, no seatbelts, windshield wipers falling off, glass smashed up all to hell, wheel bearing so shot it looks like you're driving a paint shaker.

Granted, it's illegal and you could get a ticket for it, but you'll see plenty of smashed up cars with no headlights or bumpers or whatever driving around on the roads in CA. It's just a matter of not running across a police officer who feels like spending the time to ticket you for blatantly illegal (lack of) equipment.

California does smog, but no safety inspection that I know of. You can have a car with the brake lines repaired with duct tape, but as long as the check engine light isn't lit and it passes smog, you're good to go.

I met a guy at the La Jolla Concours d'Elegance who had imported an ('82?) Trabant. He had gotten it registered with the CA license plate "IRNCRTN". Apparently, Cal DMV saw that it was over twenty-five years old, gave him an exception and the plates, and then demanded that he have it smogged.

A two-stroke Trabant.

I believe he showed the DMV the bottle of oil that he poured into the gas tank after every fillup, and asked them if there was a smog check place willing to hook what is essentially an old lawnmower up to their million-dollar diagnostic apparatus. This seemed to work.

Passing visual was always the crazy part. Heaven help you if you have a 1976 car that's missing some part made from unobtanium.

My understanding is that they can't test for NOx without rollers and the smog shops couldn't afford it.

In any case, you'd end up with cases where cars put together by show judges couldn't pass because it didn't match some book. A lot of cars used to have to have crazy gadgets that interfered with spark advance.

All for pass or not pass.

Truth is, I'll bet you could drop the whole system and not see a change in air quality at this point. Super-dirty early cars get a bye (aircooled VW) and late model are rarely modified or worn out. If you feel the need to test, do a good job and then simply charge for the amount of emissions that come out.

I have the feeling that the emissions industry has metastasized into a political power. Not unlike car dealerships.

regarding Kei cars/trucks, my working theory is that most of the objections are safety related. Lots of DOT standards that the rest of the world ignores. Oddly, motorcycles are perfectly legal.

> Truth is, I'll bet you could drop the whole system and not see a change in air quality at this point. Super-dirty early cars get a bye (aircooled VW) and late model are rarely modified or worn out.

That’s basically what happened in Ontario Canada. They dropped the program because it wasn’t providing any value. New cars would maintain good emissions control for 10 years and beyond that, salt does a good job of destroying cars anyway.

CO2 is a different story with pickups and SUVs. Ultimately, it’s how much you drive and how you drive, and that’s better addressed with gas taxes.

hah, found the DMV rule

"Only if located on a natural island with an area in excess of 20,000 acres and that is within a county having a population in excess of 4,000,000"

> You can register it in another state without the hassle you just risk getting tickets for not being CA registered.

The trick is to have your license in that state, too. Then the CHP can't prove that you're a California resident (at least not during a traffic stop) ;)

Japanese Kei trucks newer than 25 years old are pretty regularly imported into the US as Low Speed Vehicles (LSVs), which are permitted on streets with speed limits of 35mph or less. I'm not sure of the exact regulatory requirements for importing vehicles under this rule but it must be fairly relaxed as there's a number of small companies doing this. So you may have options for using a newer Kei truck around town.

A lot of the vehicles you see on Catalina Island, for example, are sold under the LSV rule and also popular as things like campus vehicles.

That's a California dealer license plate on the back of it. It appears to be street legal, but possibly only for city streets and not freeway driving.