On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, Joel Walker wrote:

(snip)
> some stupid tax law about foreign pickups, to "protect" GM & Ford and Chrysler
> from all those teenie-weenie pickups that would drive the big three into
> bankruptcy if allowed in!!! yeah, right. so how, you might well ask, did the
> Toyota/Nissan/Mazda/Isuzu get in? cause they are built in pieces (fenders and
> pickup bed comes off), they were shipped in as "parts" and assembled in
> california ... ergo, they ain't really "trucks". since the vw is unibody and
> all welded together, they couldn't get away with this. that's the story i
> heard, anyway. it goes way back to the Chicken Tax in the early 70's ... when
> somebody (germany, probably) decided to put a tax on american chicken exports
> and the congress retaliated by taxing pickup trucks.
> 
We've all tried and successfully forgotten about those Subaru Brats in 
the late 70's that slipped through the borders by installing plastic 
rear-mounted seats in the back of their little beds!  That was the first 
assault on the Chicken Tariff since VW installed the quickly removable 
passenger seats in their Panel Vans to sidestep the 25% tariff on imported 
commercial vehicles in 1964!!!

Jon Christensen    '56,58,62 Ghias,'56,62,67 Bugs,'59 Panel & '63 Camper
     /V\         Membership Coordinator for the Vintage VW Club of America 
     \W/           Co-Editor of the Vintage VW Club of America Newsletter 
 vvwca@primenet.com      Kansas City Kombis' NEATO Co-Representative