Scandalous emissions controls

Love the February 2021 issue... especially, being one of the ‘Alfisti’, the 30-page special section on Pininfarina.

However, the article on the 1968 MGC later on in the magazine (Ads on Test) reminded me how the 1968 model year here in the USA was a year of horror for cars from Europe, as yet surpassed!

I was just getting my start in the industry as a technician, having begun in 1967 at an imported car dealer in North Smithfield, Rhode Island, called Picard Motor Sales.

We had 12 different makes under the roof, mostly British (MG, Austin-healey, Triumph, Austin, Humber, Sunbeam, Lotus, etc.) in addition to Volvo, Toyota, Porsche and eventually, Audi.

It was, for all intents and purposes, government’s first foray into the automotive industry, sticking its bloody nose where it did not belong! It was the first attempt to bring automotive emissions under control, resulting in just about every make and model of vehicle coming to the US having unproven, Big Brother-dictated pollution control devices, all of which guaranteed that the vehicles, while maybe producing less pollution, could not be made to run correctly.

With air pumps, manifold air injection, gulp valves, and so much more fitted it was a nightmare to get these cars to run anything close to what should have been expected. And, no offense to my Brit friends, the British cars suffered the most, despite our best efforts.

Maybe not surprisingly, the Toyotas ran the best. MGCS and all of the afflicted others – forget about it!

Tom Letourneau