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Comment by gamegoblin | Hacker News Reader

FWIW if the car is >= 25 years old, most of these regulations go away.

I have a 1990 Subaru Sambar pickup truck [1] imported from Japan that is street legal and registered in Washington state. It’s probably only a tiny bit safer than a motorcycle because it has seatbelts. Maybe cancelled out by the fact that I don’t wear a helmet while driving it.

You can get them for $3K - 5K depending on condition and they are excellent little city trucks that get fantastic fuel economy. Getting used to the right-side drive and shifting left handed wasn’t so bad. The hard part is the blinkers and windshield wipers are swapped!

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Sambar#/media/File%3A...

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Regs also "go away" if you sell the car in parts that can be put together; it basically becomes a "kit car" at that point.

Plus, there is some kind of loophole out there for some of the quads out there (well, at least here in Arizona - we play kinda fast and loose with such I guess), like the CanAm vehicles; I see them licensed and tagged and going down the road all the time here in sand land.

Then again, that re-issue of the Jeep from India can't be sold and driven on road legally - even here in AZ:

https://jalopnik.com/the-mahindra-roxor-is-a-tiny-offroad-je...

You just rekindled my long time desire to own one of these. I saw them all over the place in okinawa and I have a die-cast toy car of one somewhere around here. I remember there was someone who put that longhorn decoration you see as a texas cliche on one. They definitely are pretty neat. It would be great for hauling landscaping items from my local nursery without having to get a full sized truck.

I'm with you, I've always admired the teeny utility trucks I see when I travel in China. It never occurred to me I could just import one thats >25 years old.

Some states won't register kei-trucks, so check with your state first. There are a few importers that keep some on stock.

For example, here is a big one in southern WA: https://www.nwminitrucks.com/inventory/active

And here is where I got mine in Seattle: http://sodo-moto.com/in-stock/?shipment=in-stock&body-style=...

If you aren't towing anything or driving cross-country, they can do just about everything a full-size pickup can do.

The bed size is 6.5 feet long and 4.5 feet wide. That's the same length as the Ford F150 bed, and the same width between the wheel wells. They are rated for 350kg (770 lbs) but you can go up to 450kg if it's well distributed.

I am an amateur carpenter and haul wood around the Seattle area in it all the time. It's absolutely perfect for this use case. It sips gas, too. Gets 30 mpg city 50 highway.

You can get 4x4 kei trucks as well. They're quite popular in New Zealand for farm work. Not road legal at all, but if you put offroad tyres on, they're basically a quad bike with a roof and a tray.

That's just so cool. I don't know why. It's somehow got this giant "I do what I want" attitude written on it. Muscle cars seem so conservative and formulaic.

For whatever reason, the current generation of teenagers seems to think it's really cool. I get compliments and genuine interest from that cohort all the time. I guess it might be because it's kind of a rebellious/counterculture/ironic sort of vehicle to drive in a country dominated by F-150 style trucks.

I knew someone when I was in high school that drove a Jeep CJ (not sure if it was a retired postal jeep or was originally sold as consumer), and I was immediately taken by how cool it was, and how much I wanted one.

I think it appeals to some in the same way that classic muscle cards do or did. Most people I knew that owned and or "restored" (using that term loosely) these cars when I was young were much less interested in being historically accurate, and much more interested in putting their own touch on them. It's a method of self expression and displaying your identity, and one that's approachable to those that are sometimes much shyer about doing so in other manners.

I speak as someone whose first car was a 1967 Mustang, and whose second was a 1973 240Z, but who now happily splits my driving time between a Toyota Camry and Honda Odyssey. I sometimes entertain the idea of starting a project car again, but with so many other projects to choose from, I doubt I'll get to it any time in the next decade.

FWIW the >25year old rule is not true in California. Things are much more complicated here.

Good.

> FWIW if the car is >= 25 years old, most of these regulations go away.

Most of those are only required to sell a new car; a car previously legally sold in the US (and maybe one sold after being legally imported by a consumer) doesn't need many of them, though it will have had to have met whichever were in place when it was first sold.

There's an import dealer in Seattle that sales similar models. Eg:

http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1987-mitsubishi-truck-2wd/

Just don't plan on driving one if you're over 5'10".

I am 5'10" and have 5" of headroom (just went out and measured to write this comment!). The cab is actually really spacious.

I'm somewhat surprised since I'm 5'11", in the drivers seat of a Delica, which is considerably larger than a Sambar, my hair touches the ceiling trim.

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