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Subject:Re: Ordered New SA Vanagon
From:Ron Semko
Date:Wed, 1 Mar 2000 23:16:20 EST

Well, gang, here's a thought for all you thoughtful ones regarding this idea.

In Florida here he export a lot of vehicles around the world. We have
exporters coming in all the time, and I want to share with you what I
stumbled across one day.

A wholesale exporter, was buying a lot of RV's and exporting them to another
country. But, before he loaded them on to a ship he would always pull the
engine and place it in the vehicle. This got the better of me one day, and I
had to ask him "why" pull the engine? He told me that if the vehicle had no
engine "in" it (meaning under the hood) it was considered junk or for parts,
as in not a complete vehicle. Even if the engine was inside the vehicle, and
hence he paid no duty on it. Go Figure!

But the mind does work in strange and mysterious ways. If we can import the
grills and other "parts", well it is an interesting idea, isn't it?

Oh, one final thought. A few months later he was not only pulling the
engines, but he would put the engine from one vehicle into another, and that
vehicles engine into the first one. He said that some official had questioned
the fact that the engine "was" there, just not under the hood. But now since
the engine that "is" there is "not" the right engine for the vehicle, well
then "obviously" it is simply "parts" he is importing, not vehicles.

Ron Semko
Orlando, Florida