Leonard,
That is true of engine swap cars, not for special construction cars.
Rich,
I could call CARB but I'd rather have a personal experience since in my opinion here in Cali you can get "Oh it needs this and that and this other thing too" no matter what CARB says prior to you showing up for inspection. Maybe I don't trust so good.
I'll poke around Cobra sites but since they can be registerd in Cali as 65 model year cars they may not be much help in my question.
thanks
Rob,
As far as I know. Cobra replicas can NOT be legally registered as '65 model year cars in California. Yes, there are people who have managed to do so, but they have had to do some pretty fishy things, i.e. first titling them in another state with much more leniency, then re-titling them in California using the other title as the source document.
The rule for 'kit cars' in California is that the car is registered as the model year that it is first titled (i.e. when the completed car is presented to the CHP to be issued a VIN, and then to the DMV to be titled and registered), and the engine needs to conform to the smog requirements for the year of the engine, regardless of the car that it happens to be in. Thus if you build a 1958 Lister/Chevy replica with a 2007 Corvette engine and complete it next year, it will be considered a 2008 model year car, and needs to meet 2007 smog specs.
This is what we call "A major bummer".
I don't know if the SB-100 cars are exempt from this; that legislation all came about long after my Cobra replica (purchased as a kit in '91, completed and thus titled in '93 as a '93) was built.
If I were contemplating such a build, I would find a bolt-in substitute, i.e. a pre-'66 smallblock Chevy, get it running and title/register the car with that engine. The state will provide a VIN tag (if the car doesn't already have one), and a separate Bureau of Automotive Repairs stating the engine year, displacement, manufacturer, and then a series of boxes with specifics which tell the smog inspector which specific smog requirements it is required to meet.
Below is the tag from my Cobra replica, which has a '66 427 side-oiler. Unfortunately the tag was damaged when it was removed to have the engine compartment repainted.
Once your car is set up with one of these, with a pre-'66 smog-exempt engine, I think the sky is the limit. You can then yank it and throw it down a mineshaft, and install a super-whippy-dippy modern engine; as long as state bureaucrats don't look under the hood, you're in great shape.
Or so it seems to me. It's possible that SB-100 cars get a free pass, and they are able to be registered as and conform to the smog rules of the model year the car is trying to emulate (i.e. a 1966 car with a 2007 motor would be titled as a '66 and have to meet 1966 smog specs). In fact, now that I think about it, I think that is more than likely--I think that's what makes getting a car listed under SB100 such a big deal.
Lots of people here have registered GT40s under SB100 recently--let's hear from them???
. A Cobra could be registered as a 65 in Cali if done so under SB 100. My problem is different, I have a fully modern looking car that no one would belive is modled after a 1965 build original.... so I can't use that tact even with SB 100. I will have to use the engine as the basis for the year of smog I wish to be tired to.
