But it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. Tire companies create more variety of tires than there could likely ever be regulations. The only problem comes when states start trying to favor local manufacturers.

Interstate commerce prevents them from imposing their restrictions on non resident vehicles. So the reg would only be a pain in the butt to people in states who voted to be different. They have a right to do so.

You likely are aware that it is almost always the object of local governments to restrict ALL aircraft when they start meddling. Either over noise issues or trying to control travel for various reasons related to either tax grabs, NIMBYism, favoritism, or ignorance.

Car travel needs much less federal interference than air travel.

RF: Loverman? SLR review? Um, yes please!

The FAA has more authority than a lot of federal departments for a lot of reasons. It’s mostly a matter of practicality. Most commercial flights are interstate after all. States do have a lot of ways to affect air travel, and if they use any sense at all, they can affect what they need to.

What they can’t do is agree to terms to get federal funding for their airports and then renege on their side of the deal.

They also can’t change a lot of the things that in aviation are the equivalent to driving on the right side of the road. Which is about everything.

Lastly, most of the world agrees with this idea. English is spoken in about every ATC and Tower facility in the entire world.

As for out-of-state registration and its legality: those that can afford the SLR don’t need to care about that minutiae. Remember, they are just a little more equal than the rest of us proles.

I just got off the phone with Rob Moran of MBUSA.

Mr. Moran informs me that all these states require exhaust pipes to terminate aft of the doors.

He also says that this isn’t much of an issue for SLR sales, as the “average” customer who lives in one of the affected areas has an out-of-state residence where they can register their SLR.

Let’s not get into the legality of registering a car outside of your “primary residence,” as Mr. Moran also says he has an SLR which “might” be available for a chaperoned TTAC test drive.

More good news: we’re in negotiations with Mr. Lieberman to write the SLR review, marking his possible editorial return to the TTAC fold.

Mocktard, sez who? Apparently not the Federal DOT, since they certified the car as legal.

Honestly I was thinking of SCCA Solo II “Street Prepared” rules section 14.10 H but a brief google comes up with Georgia’s Exhaust Code Title 40, Section 40-8-71 (a)(3) “exhaust emission point shall extend beyond the rear or outside of the passenger compartment” and potentially (a)(5) as well.

I think those still qualify as coming out behind the passenger cabin. On the SLR, they come out well forward. Still, I’d like to see the official reason why.

I don’t see how individual states can write regulations that contradict DOT standards. Okay, there are state emissions regs (which of course are the subject of great legal controversy right now), but where the exhausts exit the car, if that’s indeed the problem, certainly isn’t an emissions question.

States have unsuccessfully tried to make their own aviation regulations, but the FAA has always successfully argued that they have no business doing so.

Maybe the fact they exit around the front wheel and not out the back?

That is probably the case; I was to understand that all exhausts must exit behind the passenger compartment.

Such a tangled web.