Marcos Maniacs

Hi all,

this is my first entry and of course, although a Marcos Maniac in 
one sense, I'm an eastpondsider. :^)

Anyway, I meant to reply to this when it was a discussion on the mail 
list. 

There were, indeed, a large number of 60s cars (actually early 70s) 
exported to the states. A major part of the collapse of Marcos in 
1972 was due to the fact they shipped a large consignment of cars to 
the US (The Volvo straight 6 was selected, in parallel with the Ford 
Essex V6, partly because it was already federalised). 

Under rules at the time, manufacturers producing less than (I can't 
remember the exact number) say a 1000 cars a year, could dodge 
certain type approval rules.

However, so the story goes, US Customs couldn't believe that a 
company producing so few cars in total could ship so many in one 
shipment and impounded the cars for months whilst they investigated. 
Part of the result of this was the lack of cash flow (no cars were, 
obviously, sold) and the company folded.

Therefore, it's safe to assume that most of the cars in the US were 
actually imported their for sale new, rather than being personal 
imports. Some obvious exceptions would be RHD cars and post 80s cars, 
which were never imported, officially, into the States.

I recall hearing a story at one point that part of the reason the 
Mantis used the Mustang engine was that it was federalised and there 
was some hope that, maybe, a deal could be struck with Ford to sell 
the cars in the US, through selected outlets. I don't know, however, 
how far this idea ever advanced and I certainly don't believe it ever 
happened.

Hope this helps.

Mark

PS Great idea, this site. I was just about to take myself off the e-
mail list as my web mail service couldn't cope with the volume! I'll 
post details of this service on my site.

WWW.MARCOSCARS.NET