Here's some good news about California's proposed smog controls. Jay Leno was instrumental in having this restrictive law dropped. FLOREZ REVERSES ON CLASSIC CAR SMOG RULES By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau e-mail: vpollard@bakersfield.com Tuesday April 15, 2003, 10:56:17 PM SACRAMENTO -- With Jay Leno and the rest of California's classic car buffs on his case, State Sen. Dean Florez has dropped his proposal to require smog checks for cars as old as 1958 models. Leno, "The Tonight Show" host who has a large collection of vintage autos, personally called Florez's office to lobby against the plan. The lawmaker was also inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls from many other members of the highly organized hobby car community. One of their tools was a cartoon depicting Florez in his state-leased SUV chasing classic cars out of California. Florez was forced to back down on the bill, one in a package of 10 bills aimed at cleaning up the air in the Central Valley, before it even got its first legislative hearing. The bill, SB 708, isn't dead, but it has been amended to crack down on cars that emit visible smoke. Originally, it called for requiring regular smog checks and repairs for cars up to 45 model years old. If in effect this year, it would apply to cars made in 1958 or later. That would have replaced the state's existing exemption for cars older than 30 model years, which this year is 1973. "Given all the fights we have on all the other air pollution bills," Florez said, "it wasn't going to help to push that one." He said classic car fans made a convincing argument that most of the oldest cars on the road, while they may be some of the worst polluters, aren't usually driven to and from work daily. "We told the classic car folks that we're going to continue to talk to them," Florez continued, "but that was just too much of a detailed type of proposal." Florez's legislative aide, Michael Rubio, said Leno called after reading a newspaper article about the smog bills. " He said he wanted to know what the deal was with (SB) 708," Rubio said. "Several days later, he called back and said, 'You've got me thinking now.' And I said 'Can I start at the beginning?'" He said Leno listened carefully and discussed his thoughts on the smog problem and the bill at some length, urging Florez to carefully distinguish between older cars that are driven for basic transportation and those that are merely exhibited most of the time. Other problems, he said, are the difficulty of getting repair parts for older cars and the fact that emission controls were not mandated on cars until the late 1960s. The same arguments were made by the classic car community's chief lobbyist, Steve McDonald of the Special Equipment Marketing Association, a trade group of manufacturers, retailers, publishers and restorers. "Obviously we're thrilled that the senator has agreed to modify the legislation and refocus the target on what we believe is a more effective one, that being smoking vehicles," McDonald said. So are hobbyists like Jan VanderPool of Bakersfield, who, with his fiancie, owns three vintage Ford Mustangs. " That's definitely a big relief to me," he said. VanderPool said it took years and a lot of effort to get the rolling exemption from smog checks for cars that are more than 30 years old enacted in 1997. Florez and his staff appeared surprised, if not shellshocked, at the size and aggressiveness of the lobbying campaign against the smog check proposal. But it was no surprise to VanderPool, who has been through similar drills before when legislation was proposed that helped or hurt car hobbyists. "A lot of us have had to get pretty political," he said. "We've had to get active and kind of watch our backs."
The fact that this bill was even considered makes me fumming mad. My 73 is running better than a lot of the 86 Camary's that live around me. If they want to make laws about emissions they first need to crack down on cars that are deliberately emitting smoke and smog shops that are passing those people. Now it's not to say that those of use who have newer cars aren't ever in need of a shady smog shop but usually it's because we won't pass the visual not the emissions. Just my 2 cents.
i own a '74 maverick and a auto shop failed my inspection because my car does not have a catalytic converter. i told him to screw him self, because if a car is not equipped with one when it was bought, then it doesn tneed one. he keep arguing that 73 and up needed one. well i took it to another shop they had somewhat of an idea about older cars, and they said it wasnt a problem, becasue they can tell by looking at it, there never was one. Also i mentioned how to look in the gas tank and on the console whereit does NOt say "unleaded fuel" meaning no caty is needed so now im gonna switch to an antique plate so i dont ever gotta go thru that BS again and never have to get inspected.
actually, many 74 cars did goto the converters in 74. They should have a book mentioning which cars should and should not require them. you may not have the original gas. You also could have had a dumb tech
Im glad i live in Ga ... No smog test in most counties and the ones that require it exempt cars 25 yrs or older ...
Actually, this isn't the first time that this type of bill has been introduced to the state senate in California. 4 or 5 years ago a similar bill made it to the state senate floor & was soundly defeated. There is huge vintage car core of wealthy people in this state (partly because of the enterainment industry population) & several big time lobbiests were hired by them as well as the aftermarket performance industry to soundly effect the defeat of that proposed bill. As it later turned out, 1/3 of the state senate were vintage car owners! My point is, I doubt that the proposed smog revision law would have passed anyway. Sometimes these uninformed non interested vintage car politicians, don't think of the problems it will create for these cars to conform. All they know is that they want them to & they don't bother to get down to the nuts & bolts of the issue & inform themselves. Just my .02
Proud of my crate! This issue scared the hell out of me. Especially since I'm running a '76 two-door Maverick here in Texas. I installed the Coast High Performance 302 in my former 250-I6 car, popped on a Weiand 8011 intake and Holley 80457S four-barrel carb, MSD 6A box, blaster coil & Bosch +4 electrode plugs. The original car came with a catalytic converter (hump to prove it), but I had yanked that and put on Heddman headers with big pipes going to Flowmaster 50 series duals in the back... I'm thinking there is no way in hell this will pass inspection... Guess what? After 50 miles on the engine for break-in (!), it came in at less than half of the NOX crap the new cars are putting out! The inspector freaked out and actually got under the car to see if I put in a "Y" pipe on each exhaust to allow extra fresh air (Nope!). Since the car was in the process of being stripped for powdercoating (so it looked like crap); he called his boss outside to verify the readings. Guess what? Same thing. Couldn't bust me for anything other than the left front turn signal that strangly burnt a bulb between my house and the inspection station. $1.38 fixed that on the spot. I got my inspection sticker. This is all on an 8.00:1 compression engine (don't freak, I ordered it that way for the 6-71 BDS blower sitting in my bedroom). A well-built (or rebuilt) engine should be more than capable of passing the emissions tests. To carry it a step further, when I first got the car way back and rebuilt the I-6 250cid it had, it passed inspection as well with flying colors. Maybe it is because of the low miles on both of these engines, but both passed inspection. I am sure that in California you'd need CARB stickers stuck all over your hood, but at least the rest of the country seems to have at least a little bit of common sense. WAR is good (and I support our missions!) maybe more than we know.... maybe it keeps the politicians from getting bored and wondering in what other way they can nit-pick thier way into our lives? Just my .03 cents worth, hope it doesn't cost me business Pegasus
Now the 30 year excemption law is no more, only pre 76 cars are excempt. And starting july 1, 2010 a new tire law will go into effect. It will require maintenance places to check the tire pressure of every vehicle being serviced.
let's say we did have to pass smog inspection . . . how much horsepower would we be losing and how much would it cost to make it pass inspection?
its really hard to relate horsepower to smog requirments. it would have the stock rated power if it was all stock. you can put power midifactaions that have carb e.o. numubers that make the parts smog leagle in californa that would raise the power. the problem is that the carb eo numbers are sometimes vehical specific and know body had goten them for mavericks. the way to get most power smog leagly is to do a engine swap to a 88-93 mustang motor. they have the most smog leagle parts out there. this type of legislation is proposed all the time. its politions trying to creat a track record of being a clean air activist. they put there propsals on there rusemes to make them look good for relections. its just more politcal bs. private citizen cars are no longer the bigest contributers to the smog prolems. the commercial fleets of vehicals like delivery trucks, semis, etc are a much larger problem. there are starting to talk about regulations on air plane, and semi trucks. long beach port district already has regulations on there semis that enter it. there is also alot of talk about the cow farms being very detrimental to the ozone with the high methane emissions. we need to keep dilignet on keeping the politions from geting b.s. legislation through. thanks to sema staying on top of this we are in good hands.
6 years and 3 months since this thread started ................. Since then ... Cali now WANTS everyone with lots of cars to come and live out there, they need the registration revenue ...............
man i never even noticed it was from so long ago. but pretty interesting with these politicians trying to make their resumes more beefy
