Originally Posted by
Nightshade
Emissions are different but also the crash specs are lower than US spec and they use sugar glass instead of safety glass. So there is a bit to change over to equal US DOT legality.
this also. while japan "may have strict emmissions" they are different from USA. plus their crash regulations are not as strict.
i read somewhere long ago that if you were importing a car and there was no crash data on it. IE someone never brought it over to the states before. you would have to buy 2 and crash one so they knew where to reinforce it.
this is the big money you spend on when importing gray market cars. its legalizing them for America. i also saw somewhere in that PDF i posted that you can only drive them 2,500 miles a year. doesn't sound right, but very plausible i guess.