Mexican lawmakers recently passed a law that has the strange effect of only allowing 1998 models of American automobiles to be sold in Mexico.
The law will likely drive down the value of used cars until, a few years down the road, models from other years can be sold.
KUJH-TV at the University of Kansas
explains the new law's connection to NAFTA.
AP reports:
Until now, used cars
10 to 15 years old were scooped up at auction by South Texas used car
dealers and rapidly sold to Mexicans hungry for affordable
transportation and "la novedad" -- or novelty -- of unfamiliar makes
and models.
Cars newer than that were banned from imports as
unwelcome competition for Mexican car dealers, and anything more than
15 years old was seen as a potential environmental and safety hazard.
But
now, under pressure from Mexico's new car dealers who say "vehiculos
chatarra," or jalopies, undercut their sales, the Mexican government is
allowing only 10-year-old used cars to be legally imported into Mexico.
All of a sudden, 1998 Luminas, Astro vans and Ranger pickups are sought-after trophies.
The
Mexican Association of Automobile Distributors, which pushed for the
change, said it was needed to "stop the accelerated conversion of our
country into the world's biggest automotive garbage dump."
