Hi Ivan and Steve, and everyone,
I'm not sure what you find so mysterious about the *rules and regs.*
Are you talking about the vehicle importation restrictions?
The comments you made show you really don't appreciate how the safety
standards are applied federally and provincially.
Frankly, the government is not interested in hearing opinions about how
wonderfully a kit car or a turnkey specialty vehicle was engineered, or
by
whom.
The government doesn't care about opinions, they want the paperwork
from the
manufacturer, period. They want *proof* it meets Canadian federal
safety
standards, or if not, they want an invoice showing it's only a few
parts,
not a completed vehicle e.g. kit car body and frame, and that it's not
going
to be sold outside Ontario, if it's being built in Ontario.
Even if you build a wonderful, much improved new type of car, if you
want
Transport Canada to accept you as a new vehicle manufacturer, you must
have
sufficient vehicles in production to afford crash testing them. Most
specialty vehicle manufacturers don't produce a sufficient number of
cars
yearly to make it worth their while to crash test (and thus destroy)
some of
their vehicles. You need deep pockets, not just great engineering.
Basically, you can't import a *completed* kit car, even if it's
disassembled. Because it doesn't meet Canadian federal safety
standards for
*new* vehicles. You also can't sell a completed kit car across
provincial
borders--it then falls under Transport Canada's jurisdiction, and the
new
vehicle standards apply.
If the kit car was assembled here in Ontario for an Ontario purchaser,
provincial safety standards for a used motor vehicle are all that
applies.
After you provide invoices for all major component parts, then you just
need
a safety standards certificate, and make sure you have all the minimum
equipment specified in the Highway Traffic Act, such as a windshield
made
with safety glass.
I have all that listed in the ohcv Files Section - the kit car
registration
requirements. Have you read that yet? Please do.
The United States and Canadian federal safety standards are very
similar, so
there's usually little problem importing most regular production
vehicles
from the U.S. You can see the basic information on U.S. importation
(NOT
kit cars) at the Registrar of Imported Vehicles website:
www.riv.ca
RIV is
an agency working for Transport Canada.
If you're bringing a kit from the U.S., such as a Cobra, again, it
can't be
a complete vehicle, and you'll have to complete assembling it here.
You can pretty well forget about importing any type of completed
vehicle,
including production cars, from any other country, including the U.K.
Their
safety standards are not equivalent to ours.
Any Caterham kit car would have to complete being built in Canada, and
I
know of a few people who are building Caterham kit cars here in
Ontario.
You can be very sure any Caterham you see being driven in Ontario
wasn't
assembled in the U.K.
Please get this straight -- any imported vehicle has to be approved to
be
let into Canada by the federal government, namely, Transport Canada.
If
you're confused, don't speculate, call them! Toll-free:
1-800-333-0371.
I've already uploaded into the ohcv Files Section, a letter from
Transport
Canada from Harry Baergen, which explains everything you need to know
about
importing a kit car.
Please READ IT!! Ivan and everyone else who wants Transport Canada's
position on importing kit cars. If you read it and you still don't
understand, then post about what you're confused about.
Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but isn't anyone on the ML reading the
ohcv
Files Section? The federal and provincial rules and regs aren't a
mystery,
they're already posted in the ohcv Files Section!
Pandora D. MacMillan
MTO Licensing Administration Office