Classic Cars with Bob Gelber

Because the name of this column is "Classic Cars," I don't usually like to talk about politics, but please give me just a paragraph to discuss an important policy issue that is going to be voted on soon and most likely by both houses of Congress. It is about automobiles.

Finally, the automakers and Congress have agreed to a fuel economy standard that raises the average fuel economy of a company's fleet to thirty-five miles per gallon by 2020. Currently, the American standard is 27 mpg. I personally feel this is too little, too late, but it is a giant step for automakers here in America. For your information, the auto fleet standard in Europe is currently thirty-seven miles per gallon, and in Japan it's forty miles per gallon. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's generally conceded that European cars are the finest handling and fastest cars in all the land. By the way, President Bush has threatened to veto the bill mainly because it contains the removal of certain tax subsidies.

Speaking of crazy U.S. government bills, in the late eighties, the boys in Washington passed a real loser that affected everyone here in America who loves imported cars. I call it the Mercedes relief act, because Daimler-Benz complained that private American individuals were importing cars from Europe that were not as safe, and polluted the air more than the cars they sold here through their authorized dealers. A law was enacted that no one could import a car into America from anywhere unless it was twenty-five years old or older. Of course it was done to protect us from the "dangerous" cars of Europe, which coincidentally gave protectionism to Mercedes imports. The cold hard fact of the matter is that the Mercedes-Benz products of the era, in European form, were actually better cars than the American models they offered here. For one, ABS brakes were standard equipment on European Mercedes products years before this feature was offered to Americans.

I know quite a deal about the gray market era of importing cars from Europe, because I took advantage of the wonderful opportunities to get some real bargains myself. In late 1984 during a business/pleasure trip to Germany, I purchased two used Mercedes-Benz models. At that time, the law read that you could purchase a five-year-old used car overseas and only make minor modifications to it to make it U.S. legal. Both cars I purchased were five years old. One was a 1980 Mercedes 500 Sedan and the other a 1980 Mercedes Gelendawagon (overland car), a Land Rover look-a-like. Both vehicles were extremely low mileage and quite unusual here in America. The short and light wheelbase 500 was not sold in America, and the Mercedes G-wagon, which wasn't even made by Mercedes, but Styer-Puch in Austria, was never going to be imported (which surprisingly, eventually was). What's keeping the personal importation of foreign cars currently at a low ebb besides that ridiculous law is today's sad value of the American dollar? It just doesn't pay to purchase anything overseas anymore.

To tease your appetite for European collector cars, there is a great website I always check to see what's available in Europe. It's a British website. In the search bar enter CAR AND CLASSIC CO. UK and the site will come up along with several others. The selection of automobiles is truly impressive. Good hunting.

Of course there are many other places to look for collector cars, my favorite being the old favorite, Hemming's Motor magazine, now seen on the newsstands in every proper bookstore. Hemming's strength lies in American car sales, but the foreign collector car selection is vast. The best two foreign magazines for European iron are the two British publications, Classic Cars and Sport and Classic Cars. Those British really love classic cars. I do believe the British have taken advantage of our weak dollar and their unusually strong pound and have probably been buying up a lot of the collector cars America has for sale.

Weak American dollar, three bucks for a gallon of gas, why does 1985 feel so far away and long ago?

Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com

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