To Outfox the Chicken Tax, Ford Strips Its Fuel-Efficient Transit Connect Vans
By Scott Doggett September 22, 2009
We recently reported that Ford Motor Co. was seeing brisk sales of its 2010 Transit Connect compact vans, and today we discover the fuel-efficient Turkish vehicles must first undergo a strange ritual before they are sent to showrooms.
Right, a Ford Transit Connect "wagon."
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The "chicken law" takes its name from the high tariffs Europe put on imported chickens during the early 1960 in response to rising U.S. sales of poultry to West Germany.
President Johnson retaliated by targeting German-made Volkswagens with a tax on imports of foreign-made trucks and commercial vans.
As the story in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) goes, Europe still has a tariff on imports of U.S. chicken and the U.S. still hits delivery vans imported from overseas with a 25 percent tariff.
American companies have to pay, too, which puts Ford in the weird position of circumventing U.S. trade rules that for years have protected U.S. automakers' market for trucks.
You can read all about Ford's wiggle room, or by using knowing this clue and allowing your imagination to run wild: Just how do customs officials define a "delivery van"?
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The chicken tax applied to all pickups and vans imported from all countries. Toyota built a bed and catalytic converter plant in Long Beach to reduce the portion of the truck subject to the tax. Later they built entire trucks in Fremont, California to avoid it entirely.
The 4Runner 2-door (remember those?) went away because it was classifed as a truck and was subject to the tax. Meanwhile, the 4-door was exempt and much, much cheaper because it was classified as a station wagon. This was Pre-Explorer, so one could argue that this tax hastened the birth of the SUV explosion.
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