Re: Question for Mal

Posted by Peter Packard On 2010/1/18 2:56:04

G'day all, Especially Mal, Mal is on the money with his comments about registering LHD cars in OZ. They were very, very difficult to register in the past 50 years, especially after 1972 when Australia went to ADR's (Australian Design Rules) To the extent that seat belts in a LHD had to be converted to ADR Certified seatbelts ( Like US seatbelts don't save lives but ADR certified seatbelts do!). South Australia was very hard on registration of LHD, as an illustrative point, my 56 Patrician (LHD with 35k miles from new ) sat in a backyard from 1985 to mid 1990's because it could not be registered. It went to Sydney and was converted to RHD( please don't ask for a comment on the conversion!). It is now very easy to get an over 30 Year Old LHD vehicle registered or Permitted for "Antique" Club use. There have been new restrictions imposed recently however and it is again very difficult to register late model imported LHD and RHD vehicles. This is supposedly to protect our local auto industry. Australia brings over one million cars and trucks onto the roads every year and probable only 250,000 are manufactured locally. The topic is a very interesting one and probably closely follows the US experience of importing other countries products, as part of a free trade deal, except that it puts our own workers out of a job. Depends on the testicle size of our politicians, I suppose. Best regards Peter Toet