Mustang Sally [redux]

"What I would do, is find myself a junked Corrado down there in California, peel off the VIN and stick it on your car. You only need the one on the dash," suggested Joe, my secondary mechanic, the one who does the emissions test that the Ontario government requires every two years. Hans, my primary mechanic, doesn't have the testing machine at his garage.

Two months ago, when I first made the decision to move to California, I asked everyone I could think of who might know, what I'd need to do to be able to take my car with me. I ignored those who advised me to get rid of it; that it wasn't worth it. You see, in my family we are irrationally emotionally attached to our cars. My friend Gilbert understands. Josh understood. So does Jack. But most people don't.

I couldn't get a straight answer from any official body. And so when Jack said, "Just bring it here, and we'll figure it out when you get here. I'll help you," I decided that's just exactly what I would do.

I didn't think about it again until last week, when I called the moving company to make the final arrangements for my move. I had discussed the car with them weeks ago, and they said they would be putting it on the truck, right along with my orange velour chair, my purple and yellow floor lamps, and my boxes full of boots. That's when they told me I'd need to get a letter of compliance from the manufacturer of the car. They made it sound like such a simple thing: "Just call Volkswagen Canada. They'll know what it is."

They knew what it is, that's true. But they couldn't give me one for my car. "I can see here, by the zero in the fifth position of your VIN number," said the extremely unhelpful customer service representative at Volkswagen North America, somewhere in Michigan, "that your car is equipped only with active restraint systems. You require passive restraint systems, such as air bags or ABS brakes."

"My car has ABS brakes," I offered. "Can you be more specific? That is, can you tell me from looking at the VIN number exactly what modifications I'd need to make to my car in order for it to conform to U.S. standards?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't have that information."

"Who does?"

"I don't know. All I know is, we would be unable at this time to issue a letter of conformity for this vehicle."

I tried to be polite when I hung up on him.

I called my local Volkswagen dealer to beg for their assistance as an official-type Volkwagen entity. "The question that I need answered is, assuming I can make whatever modifications are necessary to my car, how do I then go about getting that letter?"

The answer came half an hour later. I didn't like it, but at least it was an answer, and the woman at the dealer sounded certain of what she was telling me: "Unfortunately, if the car doesn't conform you can't ever get that letter from the manufacturer. The only way to get your car into the U.S. legally is to get a registered importer to handle it for you."

Emphasis on the word legally.

"But how can that be?" asked my cousin Markus, when I told him the story. "Don't tell me all the Corrados that are in the U.S. had to go and get airbags installed?"

"No, I don't think so. They're OK, because they were already there when the regulation was established. But you can't import a car without airbags."

"And it would cost a fortune to install airbags in your car, right?"

"Worse. They can't be installed at all. There's nowhere to put them."

Markus called his friend who works at the border — the town where I grew up, Beamsville, is only twenty miles or so from it; we learned to smuggle at a very early age.

"My friend says your problem is, you're trying to take it in legally. He says just drive it across the border, tell them you're going for a visit, and then have it shipped from there. Or drive it to California. And just keep your Ontario plates on it."

"Hmn. Well, while I'm not against alternative (to legal, that is) methods, the thing is, eventually that'd catch up to me. Can I insure a car with Ontario plates? Too many ifs... and if I get it down there, and then find out there's a larger problem, then I'm fucked."

Where Markus and I grew up, everyone goes "over the river" to the U.S. We used to go over just to drink, back when their drinking age was lower than ours. Now it's the other way around; American kids come to Canada to drink. But in California, home is not simply over the river.

I called the mover to see if he had any suggestions. "To be honest you're the first person I know who's ever tried to do this," he said. "Most people just sell their car here and buy a new one down there."

Easy for you to say. See, this car may not be much to you but I love her; she's my Baby. And, more importantly, she's paid for. I'm about to become a state employee. I'll be lucky to be able to afford to buy gas, never mind a new car.

"I can give you the number of the guy who works at the border in Blaine, Washington. It's where we cross all the time," said the mover, in response to my sigh of desperation. "It's a small station, and he's the only guy there. He'll be able to tell you for sure what you need to do if you want to get your car across."

So I called Blaine, and indeed he was helpful: "If you don't have that letter, the car would be turned back, so there's no way it can come in on the truck with your other items," Blaine explained. "I've had to turn back a lot of cars because people showed up without that letter. At least you were smart enough to investigate this before you shipped it. But I have to tell you, at this point, most people would just give up. It's not going to be worth the effort."

I hate to admit defeat. I will go to extreme, even outright ridiculous lengths to get done what I want to do.

I will not sell my car. Not yet.

I'm going to leave it with Markus until I come home at Christmastime. And then we'll see.

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In the next story, Postmodern Sass hugs Kickass Karaoke Carson goodbye.