JonathonK

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.

Read the rest on the MBWorld homepage.

Benzgeist

You put forward an interesting, but flawed theory. MB could care less about 15-year old cars. They are in the business of selling new cars and next-to-new cars. That's it. Very little of an MB dealer's revenue comes from servicing cars 15 years old and older. Those cars are generally maintained buy their owners or independent specialists. Granted, the MB Classic Center does a good business, but it only deals with the higher end collectables, which are over 25-years old anyway. In short, MB has no stake in this one way or the other.

Chris - LL

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I believe you and the article are in agreement - the ban made sense for Mercedes around the time it was enacted, but now it's mostly irrelevant to them so they should support repealing it to help the industry at large?

Edit: Ah, you were right about the article implying it would help MB - I'm more inclined to agree they would be indifferent for the reasons you outlined. However, it would be great for it to be repealed for the industry at large, and, I'm sure we all agree, petrolheads!