Mercedes is the Reason We Can’t Import Cool Things
Earlier today on our sister site 6SpeedOnline, we posted a petition for the revision of the United States’ inane 25-year import car ban. One thing that wasn’t said was who in the industry helped push it. That would be Mercedes. Why, you ask? Because money obviously.
In 1984, four years before the law was enacted, an article came out in Time stating that buyers of luxury cars could get better prices if they went to the gray market — that is, if they imported the car from another country, thereby cutting into the financial gains of the U.S. market. Mercedes saw this effect and began to lobby congress hard, ending with the law being enacted.
This at the time, made sense, but now it doesn’t. In 1984, Mercedes saw a declining profit margin and acted. They couldn’t have foreseen what has become of the market. Now people are clamoring for their older cars among others. I think it would be in Mercedes’ best interests for them to now come back and say, “Yes, it made sense then, but we are now at a place where this won’t matter all that much.” MB would also get the benefit of people like me or you wanting to get our hands on things like the Hammer, or a later SL, or any of the awesome stuff they made in the 80s.
Mercedes acted then, and it helped. We can’t blame them for having good business sense, but with the petition today, there won’t be any worry of it crossing over into their profits. We are only asking for the law to change how many years it takes before a car is legal to import — from 25 to 15 years. It’s not that big of a jump. Please, Mercedes, get behind this. It’s in our and your best interests.