Importing a '92 EURO 928 GTS, by James Morrison

Malcolm, here is another example for you....

A few years ago (may have even been the late '90's) what does Carroll Shelby uncover? About 75 registered frames for his iconic Cobra! Over the next many years all of these cars were built in to ACTUAL cars (remember they were simply BARE FRAMES, but registered when they took them out of storage). What MY are these cars? '99, '00, '05... NOPE! Every one of them is a 1965 Cobra! They only have to meet '65 emissions and crash standards even, despite the fact they were being completed more than 30 years later.

Soooo, the moral of the story (regardless of if you like the story or not) is that not only does the original SALE date have nothing to do with the MY of the car, but even the BUILD date does not have anything to do with the MY of the car. Hence my '91 build GTS being a '92 and your '92 build being a '93 and these 2000 build Cobra's being 1965 MY cars!

I know its crazy, but it is what it is.

James, you are correct as far as it concerns US cars. Other countries do things differently. Not sure if Canada is one of them, but I am absolutely sure some European countries determine MY by the original sale date, registration date, or whatever...

For example, somewhere in Europe there apparently exists a 2000 model 928 GT. If the car were titled in the US, it would be determined a '91. But because of the laws of the land where it was first titled, it is now considered a 2000. Wish I remembered more details of the story. There was a thread about it on RL.

Anyway, my point is that you and Malcolm may both be right. If his GTS were originally titled in the US, it may very possibly be considered a '93. I don't truthfully know. However, since Canada apparently determines a car's MY based on the year it is originally owned, it is titled as a '92.

Hope this is helpful. Originally, I was just going to keep my mouth shut as this is James' thread.

thx Austin........at last a voice of reason.

I have lived in many countries of this world and James you have met me and know by my accent its not a North American country.

A cars model year is exactly the date it was sold and in my case May, 1992.

The fact that Porsche sold 928s in 1992 with either a N or a P in the VIN is moot......a clever marketing ploy as the US was flooded with prior model years? dont know, dont care............theres a whole wide world outside the USA.

I was curious as to what I could find on the web, and a simple query asking "how is the model year of a car determined?" seems to result in a consistent response that it is the model year provided by the manufacturer.

Certainly if you are going to buy parts for a car, the parts provider doesn't care what year you bought it, or what year it was registered, they only car what model year the manufacturer considered it, and of course that is determined by the VIN.

Well, up till Stan posted I had a '91 GTS... DOH! LOL! If you look at listings for cars for sale in Germany they talk about the first date of registration, but they don't say that is the MY of the car, because the cars MY is in fact determined by what the manufacturer of the car says. In fact that is the only thing that makes sense because emissions and crash standards change continually. The best example of this would be if a cars year was determined by the year it was sold, then (in the US in '95) any car left over and carrying in to '96 would have had to have been recalled and refitted with an OBDII system. That and dwindling sales are the big reasons the 928 was discontinued (same for the 968 actually). The refitting of the engines was going to be grossly expensive and of course these changes were known years in advance and Porsche chose to just build a cheaper car (Boxster) instead of trying to upgrade the 928 and 968 engines to meet the new OBDII standards.

James,

I would not contest anything you just stated, nor would I contest the MY of your car. It is clearly a '92 to ANY country's standards. I am hoping one of our Canadian friends can confirm, but my understanding is that the next MY lineup is not typically available for sale until closer to the new calendar year; not like the US where we could buy a 2013 car earlier this year.

What I am getting at is that it is a little more extraordinary to have a conflict in your MY vs. the date of sale outside of the US. Certainly if you had a '86 S4 according to your title you wouldn't relay that to a parts vendor. You would call it an '87. Perhaps Malcolm's car might be a considered a '93 in the US and, of course, to Porsche. I don't know as he hasn't offered his VIN. If Canada or elsewhere considers it a '92, and that's what Malcolm wants to claim it, I'm not losing any sleep.