FINOCJ previously posted:
"Not sure what the cut-off date is for 'collector' status"
Website says 1975 and before, but with of course some confusing exceptions and other options. This is a '77, so somehow my dad got collectors plates. I was there when he took it in Nov 2018 to get emissions tested, he passed and I have the paperwork on my desk currently. So there is a subsection that says if it is at least 32 years old (check!), and you pass emissions within last 12 months, you can apply for collectors plates. So that's the only way he was able to do it I think, but what that means for me is, I think, that I can apply for them as well.
There is some writing that says if it was registered as a collectors vehicle before '09, you get grandfathered in. However, once it changes owners, you will have to re-apply without grandfathered in status, so you'd have to meet some of the other criteria. This case does not apply to me because it was only registered a collectors vehicle in late 2018, so the changing of the owners shouldn't matter, since it wasn't grandfathered in from the '09 "clause."
As for the guilt side of it, I feel it a bit but I won't be daily driving it so that makes me feel better. Also the engine is rebuilt and running "clean," and the only missing system would inject in air to cause a reburn before the catalytic converter. I'm not sure how much that actually did.
If I'm emissions exempt, I'm going to put on a nice performance exhaust sans-catalytic converter since it is missing that AIR system anyway, all I'm going to be doing is clogging up cats left and right. I think my move from an '05 5.7L Hemi w/ average mpg as about 12 on a good month to a 2020 2.0L Turbo as my daily driver is enough positive emissions karma to offset me hauling a dirt bike around in the Honcho occasionally
Edit: the 2.0L Turbo, including the wheeling trips (I don't reset my avg mpg counter), is sitting around 19mpg average over the life of the vehicle so far. Not bad!