build dates and model years

["Watry, Andrew (LNG-SFR)" <Andrew.Watry@domain.elided>]

Re James Montebello's comments about his old Berlina (which I owned
before he did), it was VIN AR*3002155*, built 10/73, but as he said,
definitely a 1974 model-year car.  I have in the Berlina Register
database 1974 model-year cars built as early as 8/73.  I think this is
typical of the US market, when model-year cars (the next calendar year)
go on sale in August or September of the preceding year.  Alfa was
probably a bit behind the curve here, because I would guess a car built
in August wouldn't get to a US dealer's sale floor for a couple months at
least.

As to how these 1974 model years cars got back-registered to 1973 in
California, I've heard two theories. One is that for title and
registration purposes, DMV may have looked merely at when the car was
built, so a 8/73 got listed on the title as a 1973 model. (Although this
has worked the other way too, with 1974 Berlinas and GTVs that didn't
sell til 1975 got registered as 1975 model-year cars, a real problem for
the owner at smog time, since 1975 standard are much more stringent). 
The other method I've heard is that people have more recently taken their
1973 build-date information for a 1974 model-year car in to DMV and
gotten the car re-registered as a 1973 model to avoid smog checks. 
Apparently some DMV offices are willing to do this.

All this model-year concern was mainly of federal, not state, importance
at the time, to meet US safety and emissions standards.  California had
different clean air goals from the rest of the country at the time, but
we did not yet have California-only and 49-state cars, which came later,
in 1975 I think.  EPA and other federal departments were the ones setting
and enforcing these requirements at that time; Calif. DMV wasn't involved
in standards, but only in registration, and has only gotten dragged in
more recently, I think, by the fact of the model-year difference, and how
that relates to the Calif. legislature's having separately exempted 1973
model-year and earlier cars.

Andrew Watry
Berlina Register
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