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Originally Posted by JSH
In the USA they would be treated exactly the same as a JDM truck.
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That's what I would expect.
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I doubt the engines used in Brazil are the same spec as Europe.
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At least for the gasoline-powered versions, when Fiat exported Brazilian trucklets to Europe, the engines were exactly the same. Turbodiesel was only for export, yet it had some differences between European, Latin American and South African spec.
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I know ours are not. We have different versions of the same engine for different markets with different emission standards. The long blocks are the same but a lot of the rest is different.
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When the Fiat 500 was released in Brazil, before the US-spec versions began to be made in Mexico, the Polish-made ones came with a 16-valve version of the 1.4L FIRE engine, yet the US-spec came with the 8-valve which had been already fitted to the Fiat Strada since 2004. Exactly the same engine.
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Even if the engine was the same you would hire a lab do EPA emission testing on it to legally register a Brazilian import in the USA for use in all 50 states. The last time I had that done in an independent lab was 2010 and it was about $200K.
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I was considering easier to get the EPA approval, not cheaper. And even if some importer could attempt to bring them as a glider kit for the fitment of an engine already certified, since most engines fitted to Brazilian trucklets have at least one US-spec analogue it would be technically possible.
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However, some states will register just about anything so states that allow someone to register JDM trucks, UTVs, and Roxers for street use would likely also allow unibody trucks from Brazil.
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Such conditional registrations are what I had in mind when I mentioned some possibility to apply for the same loopholes, even though the Brazilian trucklets still seem easier to federalize than a JDM kei truck.