German Police Are Repeatedly Fining American Soldiers Over Their 'Extreme' Muscle Cars
German police are clamping down on American soldiers driving modified muscle and pony cars around the town of Kaiserslautern.
Incredibly strict German rules on what is and isn’t legal when it comes to modifications are at odds with the freedom of expression brought in by the army men at Ramstein Air Base, whose cars have reportedly been targeted by the police and clubbed with fines for a huge variety of what we’d call petty offences.
Jalopnik reports that the chief of the town’s police department had said the Americans’ cars were more heavily modified and “extreme” than German cars, even going as far as to say that the big V8s in the resident muscle cars weren’t especially welcome. That guy sounds like he’d be a riot at parties.
Other infractions that have been reported include yellow fog lights, window tinting and loud exhausts, with one soldier apparently being repeatedly stopped over the cooling vents in his bonnet, which are a standard feature on the unnamed model.
The full post makes interesting reading, essentially boiling down to a cultural difference between the Germans’ naturally controlling nature based on strictly-enforced laws, and the ingrained creative freedom enjoyed by Americans, especially when it comes to modifying their cars.
Modified German cars have to have every change noted down in a registration booklet, and if it makes the booklet then it’s passed the infamous TUV test and it’s legal. American cars’ log books don’t have anything like that, which is apparently causing the police some difficulties in determining what is legal and what isn’t.
We’d like to ask the opinions of our German CTzens, or anyone from the other side of the French border who knows the system in Kaiserslautern. Are the police being too heavy-handed or are the Americans taking liberties? Is it a bit of both?
Comments
Matt Kimberley
Small error in the article:
We don’t just have to get modifications entered into a “booklet”.
Every single part we install has to be TÜV-approved (there are dfferent levels of approval, but I won’t get into that here), and since the soldiers bring their cars/parts for their cars from America their parts lack the needed paperwork to be entered into the booklet.
That’s done because obtaining any level of TÜV-approval is very costly, and since the German market is tiny (and the rules are restrictive) most foreign companies don’t bother.
So, in short, it’s not just getting the parts listed, you first need to find parts that are approved for (install and) a chance for TÜV-approval.
I live 15 minutes away from Ramstein Air Base. On April 1st (when the ‘tuning season’ starts here in Germany) the german police worked together with the american army police. It’s tradition that tuners meet up in Kaiserslautern on that day. But this year there were massive controls and loads of police cars, letting no one drive away before checking their car. 60 cars weren’t allowed to drive on because they were ‘modified too much’, 2000 fines because of smaller problems were written. The police in this area and in bigger cities are pretty hard this year, beause people died in car races in Berlin an Cologne. Some car meets aren’t allowed this year. Punishment for street racing got raised just a while ago. All in all you can say that Germany hates tuners. But what I can say too, is that Americans living in Germany can drive cars with much more modifications (colored headlights, tinted front windows..), because the german police doesn’t have the power to fine them. Plus, Americans can drive their cars in Germany when they are 16, which you can’t as a German. So Americans still have much more freedom in this case than Germans
Germany > USA
Well its simple .
If it has German Licence Plate.
Its going to have German Tüv .
And then , welcome to the german “Car modefieing scene” . Hf & Gl
Well it’s not america is it, so respect the culture of the country you live in or go back home, the whole world hates americans anyway, no need to be even bigger a-holes
Unpopular question but why is there a water bottle on the middle of the road in the 3rd pic?
Warning: mad americans in comment section
2mm to low police says fck u your car don’t drive anymore
Seriously, can some mod please shut down the comment section here? This doesn’t have to do anything with car culture, it’s just pure hatred here.
May I say as an American solider this is pure bullsh**
Topics
Sponsored Posts