Registered on Maui as a 1957 Lotus

[Maui06]

Long story kinda short: I bought a 2006 Atom Ecotec and it arrived here on Maui last September. After 6 glorious months of "working with" DMV, I was able to get the County attorney's office to tell DMV that the AA2 qualifies under Hawaii law as a Special Interest Vehicle, which has to resemble a pre-1968 vehicle. I searched photos, and DMV agreed that the AA2 resembles a 1959 Lotus 7 (at least from the front). Great! Installed a wiper on my driver's bubble "windshield", fabricated a front license plate mount, and passed the specific Special Interest Vehicle safety inspection. Got my plates, title and registration. Installed the plates and scanned my documents...

and discovered that my 2006 Ariel Atom is now titled and registered as a 1959 Lotus, Type: Replica kit car. No mention of an Atom anywhere. It should have been titled 2006 Ariel Atom, Type: Resembles 1959 Lotus. While some people might be okay with that, I was not, because it would cause issues with insurance, re-sale, and shipping from Hawaii. DMV says this is the only way to register it, because if it is a kit, it will get the year and model of the car it replicates, and being pre-1968, a 1959 Lotus doesn't have to comply with Federal Safety Standards.

I should mention that I'm an attorney, specializing in dealing with Hawaii government regulations for the last 35 years. I can tell you with absolute certainty that DMV is wrong for about a dozen reasons, and I would prevail in court. But, if I were to fight DMV any further, (or even prevail in court) they would probably put me through this wringer all over again from the beginning every year, when I would have to renew my safety inspection and registration...or find other reasons to deny it. Because when they're right, they're right.

Fortunately, I still had a valid Montana title and current registration, through a Montana LLC. So I insisted that DMV cancel the whole Maui County transaction. It's all good now, but as they say: that's 8 months of my life I'll never get back.

My advice: Be well-informed before you approach DMV. Search your state law for Special, Replica, Hot Rod, Kit or other types of non-standard vehicles, get copies of the State law, County law, Town law and any DMV administrative rules or regulations. If it looks doable, ask DMV exactly what will appear on your title and registration, before you finalize the transaction. Sometimes, even if well-meaning, government agencies don't know the law, they only know "how they've always done it."

[FrankRizzo]

I had assumed if ANYONE could get it done it'd be you. Sounds like typical bureaucracy though. Thanks to a previous lawsuit here in Washington Atom's are street legal, but when I went to register mine, the DMV couldn't figure out *HOW* to register it. I did a Google image search and found a pic of an Atom with a WA plate and showed it to them. They C&P'd how THAT one was registered in order to register mine. We were at a standstill before I did that. I would probably have NOT gotten it registered. "I'm sorry, I just don't know how to register that".