Patrick said, in part:
What constitutes "gray market"?
Now, my Elise was sold in the USA, by Lotus USA, with
full knowledge and approval of the US federal
government, including Customs. It was sold as an "off
road" vehicle only and I had to sign a waiver to that
affect.
In other words, it wasn't sold here as a road car. It might as well have been
sold as a "box of hammers by Lotus USA". If it was not a car that could ever
be "federalized", then it was a race car. Can you say Porsche 959? Several
multimillionaires found out that having one didn't mean that you could _ever_
drive it on the street.
Whether SCCA ever let you use it in an event is another matter of course. SFR
lets nearly anything with wheels run in OSP nowadays, and has classes for
non-street-legal cars. Should National bother to try to class cars that exist
in extremely limited quantities? There has to be a limit on how much effort
to go to, to please such an owner/member, versus all the members who are
following the existing rules and will be annoyed by being out-spent. There's
a great guy who's in STX because he has a BMW model (Alpina? I forget the
details, Joe) that doesn't match any BMW that was ever accepted by the rest of
the rules. So rather than get protested out of anything he would win in a
stock class where he has a marginal if any advantage, he runs STX where the
differences would put him if he had made them.
Gray market means various things, but generally refers to shipments that are
not officially approved by the parent company, thus giving them the
opportunity to decline to honor warranty, send parts, etc. This applies to
cameras and electronics as well, though there's probably a lot less different
on a gray market Nikon SLR (usually practically the same chassis and options,
maybe a language difference in the menus) than comparing on a non -US Lotus to
the other Loti offered that year.
So some dealer got you to drop a bucket of money on a car that the dealer
wasn't legally required to service or support. Great job by the sales force!
You're in the same position as the Englander whose situation started this
thread - you've got a chance to bring in a world class car which has to be
shipped back to its home nation for a tune-up. Wouldn't be my choice, but
that's just me.
PaulT
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