I had a long discussion at the Festival of Speed with Ian Stent of Complete Kit Car. He has a vested interest in EU regs, IVA etc because he could suddenly find himself out of a job should regulations suddenly make the registration of home-built cars much more difficult.
Once we had established the differences between the various types of Whole Vehicle Approval for home builders, manufacturers and so on, we got a little more philosophical.
The reason for the switch from SVA to IVA was driven by the EU, with the intention to make the standardised IVA approval of a vehicle in one country acceptable in all the others. Very praiseworthy I hear you cry, but wait one - how will it be implemented?
Imagine the committee set up to design a test acceptable to all EU countries, for this is what would be necessary. From Italy and Scandinavia on the one hand, who consider home-builts to be the spawn of the devil, to the UK, and to a lesser extent France and Germany, who recognise the economic value of a healthy home-building market. Each country will argue in favour of its own interests and will form blocs with similar-minded countries. The outcome, because the EU antis are more numerous than the pros, is that the IVA will become progressively stricter as the antis ratchet up the pressure. This is as certain as night follows day.
So, beware the magazine articles that say, 'No worries, the IVA is very little different from the SVA'. Maybe it is - now - but PC-BS regulations like those described by Frank will be with us, probably sooner rather than later.