EPA / Home Land Security Seizing Land Rovers

I hate to say it, but I could see this coming. 40 Land Rovers were seized for as the Homeland Security agent put it, " The Land Rovers, which do not meet federal safety or emission standards, cannot be lawfully operated in the United States" Here is a link to the story.

http://jalopnik.com/the-feds-just-seized-40-land-rovers-imported-to-the-u-s-1605985758

This is disturbing as I could see the little pencil pushers in the EPA with every thing going on looking at back sales of MV's that violate their rules.

This really has nothing to do with the hold on military vehicles.

These are imported vehicles that seem to have been imported illegally.

Now one could argue that the owners of these Land Rovers are getting a raw deal but these aren't military vehicles and this subject is better discussed elsewhere.

To add to this, why do you think we don't allow posts about getting titles and serial plates off of scrapped trucks and selling them? It's illegal.

We also point out that you must be careful in buying a HMMWV without checking the history for a clean title. Why? Because some are illegal.

People should learn the difference between stopping sales and doing something that is clearly illegal.

I want to add something to this, since I have a lot of Land Rover friends and am somewhat familiar with the Defender issue.

The best article I found online was this C&D one, please go read it:

http://blog.caranddriver.com/exclusive-feds-declare-war-on-black-market-land-rover-defenders/

In short, what's happening to these Defenders is very different from what's going on with the current stoppage of military surplus and they're unrelated.

There is a good thread on one of the Defender forums but it's 80+ pages long: http://www.defendersource.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54930


The long and short of it is that Defenders haven't been sold in the US for a long time and they're very popular so a lot of companies import them once they're 25 years old and exempt from federal safety and emissions regulations. But a lot of people would prefer to have a newer Defender and since they look similar, there have a been many shady folks pop out of the woodwork who were willing to put a 1984 VIN plate on a 1999 Defender.

That is what the Feds are after-and for good reason. What's illegal is illegal.

It does suck for the owners but if you're buying something like that you need to make sure you know what you're buying and if you know you're buying something that isn't kosher, you accepted this risk.

The same thing has happened in lots of special interest cars groups: There were re-VIN'd Minis coming into the States (and they were seized) and you should read all the crazy stories about grey market Porsche 930's.

In short, this is totally unrelated to our issue and I wanted to supply some in depth explanation so that people wouldn't think they're related or part of some larger movement.