My (mis)understanding is that if your neighbor is proposing to buy the
car and then move to California, it only has to meet 49-state aka
Federal standards and need not be brought up to whatever the
California spec was for 1982. I think this is also true if he is
presently a Californian and wishes to bring this car into the state,
but am less certain about that. He should ask
http://www.smogcheck.ca.gov
How much hell he has to walk through to get this *particular* car to
meet those standards depends a lot on what kind of shape it's in (both
general wear and tear and immediate tune) and on how much smog-related
original equipment has been replaced with aftermarket mods... or a
plug or a piece of straight pipe or whatever. In some states, if
what comes out of the tailpipe is clean enough they don't care how you
achieved that feat, but in California it all starts with a visual
inspection. If they see missing, added, or unapproved equipment in
certain areas that are considered to affect emissions, you flunk right
then and there.
I don't know ****sches well enough to guess whether those were good
years or tell you specifically what to watch out for. Whether this
particular car is a good buy at the price -- and whether this
particular person is a good candidate to own what sounds like
something of a mechanics special -- are questions I wouldn't touch
with a ten-millimeter ratchet wrench.
Instead let me offer my blanket suggestion for used car buyers:
having a mechanic knowledgeable about that model, who has no stake in
the deal, go over it before purchase. He's paying for objectivity as
much as expertise -- by the time it gets that far, more or less by
definition he wants the vehicle, and the $25 or $50 or even $100 or
whatever that the mechanic charges for an inspection could save him
orders of magnitude more. And even if the decision is to buy it,
he'll go into the deal with a repair and maintenance strategy, and
knowledge of the car's weak points that is gained the way you want to
(in a garage) rather than the ways you don't want to (in the desert in
the summer, in the mountains in the winter, in the toll plaza in rush
hour...) Take it from one who has done this both the hard way and
the easy way...
Best of luck,
--Joe
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