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How is your State NOT classic car friendly?

4K views 12 replies 8 participants last post by  drjim 
#1 · (Edited)
Some are OK,others not so good.
Using their criteria,you may be surprised to see who is #1: BEST State for classic cars.

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/07/18/how-classic-car-friendly-is-your-state?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=19_July_20_Weekend_News

Some of the criteria is not so important. Some REALLY are.

Length of driving season.
Do they salt the roads?
Are the roads terrible with pot holes?
How is traffic?
Emission requirements.Inspection requirements.
Ease of title/registration transfers and COST.
 
#2 ·
I've never been hassled in Texas about my 1985 vintage plates but then again, I've never driven it work. I've seen people who do "cheat", but the bigger risk is not a ticket, but rather that somebody runs into you. One thing I have noticed about driving classic cars is that people tend to come awfully close. Its actually human nature to steer toward whatever you are looking at. Some bonehead is staring at your Supra because they haven't seen one in 25 years, and WHAM! Then you're left trying to explain to Haggerty or other classic insurance carrier why you were driving your classic Japanese sports car on a Monday morning on the freeway during rush hour. But we do have awful roads here for sure. The only reason for paving in Texas has nothing to do with making a smooth surface to drive on, but rather we only put down a thin coat of asphalt just to keep the dust down.
 
#4 ·
.. But we do have awful roads here for sure. The only reason for paving in Texas has nothing to do with making a smooth surface to drive on, but rather we only put down a thin coat of asphalt just to keep the dust down.
Really? Last year when I was down in Austin I don't think I hit a pot hole the entire week on the freeways? Inside of town on the city roads it was a little iffy. California on the other hands is probably only second to Afghanistan in road quality. The thing I couldn't figure out in Texas is that it seemed almost impossible to drive on the freeway without paying a toll. In CA the toll is they let you drive in the carpool lane, but you can always drive in the other 3 or 4 lanes for free.

The worst thing in CA IMO is the other drivers. There is just so many morons and a-holes. It's getting so bad I hate just leaving the house any more.
 
#3 · (Edited)
I tried Commifornia about two years ago with no fruit from my labor of many hours of trying to get my 1986 Cressida Wagon on historical plates. It certainly met all of the criteria however instead they voided the PNO that was on it and charged me around $900 for all kinds of fees and penalties. I won't go into too many boring details except to say that the CA DMV is trained to use strong arm tactics to extract the maximum amount of money from car owners as prescribed by law. California used to publish their motor vehicle codes on line however last I checked they removed it. In the vehicle code book are the requirements to register a historical car. Not only did they remove the vehicle code from the state DMV web site they changed the number of some codes so now if you try to use old codes they will play dumb over the counter as if it does not exist anymore. It's as if Kafka himself runs the DMV.

And yes, the roads are very bad. When they do construction on surface streets here in San Diego the patch jobs are at best third world quality. The roads are so bad here I am worried that Trump will build the wall to the north of us.
 
#6 ·
Kalifornia besides smog rules, DMV is down right menacing...You can have a commercial Class A license but you cant drive a fire engine? Granted the endorsement on the license(s) are a bit different... haz mat endorsement, SCBA compressed air tank endorsement...we have to have a little piece of paper signed by the Chief and carry it with us to be legal to drive a fire apparatus... Lots of the young kids have never driven a manual trans, changed their own oil more less driven a 40K lb truck...
 
#10 ·
Not so much anymore, but I used to be. When I was much younger, right out of college, driving my first Supra, on at least two separate occasions, police parked their radar trailer directly in front of my house, you know the one that says "The speed limit is XX, Your speed is YY". Very strange since I lived on a little residential street just one city block long, hardly long enough for most cars to even accelerate up to the speed limit, let alone get there by mid-block. I really think they were trying to tell me something. ;)
 
#8 ·
Seattle traffic is HELL from 2-6 PM.
Seattle has 'car fool' lanes and a few toll roads.
Seattle rain: Too much!
Seattle snow/ice: About 2 months of the year.
Seattle roads: I've seen worse.
Seattle license fees are nasty!(King County)$160.00 for my '84? Sheesh!
I don't qualify for classic car insurance on a daily driver.
Most cops are OK,here.
 
#11 ·
I read that Hagerty article with great interest, Dave, and they're pretty accurate.

One thing they didn't mention about Kalifornia is that they've tightened up the limits to pass smog on older cars. The last time (literally.....) I registered it I took the paper work down to the San Pedro DMV as they're a bit less crazy than the Torrance DMV. I had a very nice chat with the nice lady who helped me go through all the "late registration" blues, and she told me, after looking around to see if anybody was listening, that Kalifornia really, really, really wants to get ALL the "old cars" off the road, and her son was going through the wringer with a 1970 Camaro SS that should have been pretty easy to get smogged and registered.

Ms. Swan was constantly fail/retest/pass, sometimes failing (or passing) by ONE part-per-million on one of the exhaust gases.

But here in Colorado, she flew through smog, and the guys at the state run test facility said it was very clean, and congratulated me on keeping another "old car" on the road!

Quite a difference from where we came from.

Roads here are anywhere from "Kalifornia Compatible" to stunningly beautiful paved roads through stunningly beautiful countryside. Everything from "Laurel Canyon" and "Mullholland Drive" to Bonneville flat and straight roads depending on whether I head West into the foothills or East out on the Plains.

Oh, and I got Ms. Swan registered here for FIVE years for less than the previous cost of ONE year, and that included the "VIN Verification", the smog test, and all the other fees associated with bringing in an out-of-state car.

- Jim
 
#12 ·
Yep, are a very smart dude to GET OUT.
Floods and earthquakes and wild fires and the Horrible DMV.
I grew up in Torrance,but got out in the 60's.
Colorado is a fine choice and your garage is HUGE!
I feel badly for the auto transport debacle.

I also would be proud to own your Supra,Jim.As you are.
My cost of living in Seattle is much higher than Fort Collins,by far. You will be fine living there.
Holy gee whiz!:::::Wear a wet shirt!
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/co/fort-collins/80525
 
#13 ·
I could put up with the crowding and congestion, and even the traffic, when I was working, but after I retired, it got to be pretty annoying.

And the fact that Ms. Swan was rapidly becoming an endangered species wrt smog testing made it even more so.
 
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