Interpretation ID: 3314o

Mr. Richard R. Lender
President
Coachland, inc.
3361 Lansing Road, Rt. 7
Charlotte, MI 48813

Dear Mr. Lender:

This responds to your November 10, 1988 letter concerning the importation of windshields for vintage buses produced from 1955 through 1962. You indicated that these windshields are not certified as complying with Standard No. 205, Glazing Materials (49 CFR 571.205), but asserted that the windshields "do meet all other regulations." You suggested that you ought to be permitted to import these windshields even though they are not certified as complying with Standard No. 205, because the windshields will only fit buses manufactured between 1955 and 1962, whereas Standard No. 205 did not become effective until January 1, 1968. This suggestion is incorrect. Your company is prohibited by Federal law from importing or selling windshields that are not certified as complying with Standard No. 205 if the windshields were manufactured on or after January 1, 1968.

I have recently discussed this topic at length in a September 12, 1988 letter to Mr. Steve Zlotkin (copy enclosed). To briefly repeat, Standard No. 205 requires all items of glazing material for use in motor vehicles manufactured on or after January 1, 1968 (the effective date of the standard) to comply with all applicable requirements of Standard No. 205. It is the date of manufacture of the glazing material itself, not the date of manufacture of the vehicle in which the glazing material will be installed, that determines whether the glazing material must comply with all requirements of Standard No. 205.

Your letter indicated that your company conferred with Mr. Francis Armstrong, formerly the director of our Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance, and that you "were given permission" to import similar windshields in 1985. I regret any misunderstanding you may have had of the long-established agency position on this question as a result of this conference. The agency's interpretation that it is the date of manufacture of the glazing that determines whether it is subject to Standard No. 205, not the date of manufacture of the vehicle in which the glazing is to be installed, was first announced in a May 8, 1967 letter to Mr. Earl Kintner (copy enclosed). Every time the agency has been asked this question for the past 21 years, it has repeated the position originally taken in the letter to Mr. Kintner. If anyone in this agency has ever given you or your company a different response to this question, the response did not reflect the agency's position.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

Enclosures

/ref:205 d:l2/9/88