Government Gets Great Idea: "Hey, Let's Block GM From Selling Stuff"

UPDATE: Crisis averted! An agreement has been reached and the cars will cross the block after all.

Ah, the joys of kicking a cash strapped company while it's down on its luck.

I'm not quite sure what has changed from January when GM unloaded a swath of cars from it's heritage collection at Barrett-Jackson's Scottsdale, Arizona auction, but as of now it would appear that the Feds are none to happy to see GM part with concept cars, test mules, etc at BJ's auction in Palm Beach.

If you look at any of the GM listings at barrett-jackson.com, it clearly states:

THIS IS A CONCEPT VEHICLE. NEITHER GM NOR BARRETT-JACKSON MAKE ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, CONCERNING THE VEHICLE, INCLUDING NO WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE VEHICLE IS NOT CERTIFIED TO COMPLY WITH ANY FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL LAWS, RULES OR REGULATIONS AND MAY NOT BE DRIVEN ON PUBLIC ROADS. THIS VEHICLE WILL BE CONVEYED TO BUYER WITH NO MANUFACTURER STATEMENT OF ORIGIN (MSO) OR TITLE AND THE VEHICLE DOES NOT HAVE A COMPLETE VIN. SOLD ON BILL OF SALE ONLY.

That seems pretty clear to me that the vehicle is for display/off public road use only. Apparently that isn't good enough for the folks at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Now here's the kicker, the Feds showed up and blocked the sale of the vehicles and then pretty much left for the day. Oh, and the Feds won't be back in the office tomorrow either. Nice. So now you've got a bunch of bidders travelling from all over the country and it would appear that many stars of the show won't be available.

Stay classy San Diego!

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Sports Car Market is reporting that midway through Friday's collector car sale, representatives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) forced Barrett-Jackson to stop the sale of certain cars from the GM Heritage Fleet.

SCM sources say that this order from NHTSA was completely unexpected; Barrett-Jackson and GM have been extremely careful to note, in written material posted on the cars, which GM cars are sold on "salvage titles" or similar, and cannot be registered. Apparently, despite this, NHTSA is concerned that someone "might try" to register the cars for the street.GM and Barrett-Jackson are attempting to resolve this so that the cars, which have been heavily publicized and have drawn bidders from across the nation, can be sold. Unfortunately, discussions are hampered by the fact that the relevant NHTSA offices are closed for the day, and reportedly will be closed tomorrow as well.

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For those curious, the Cobalt shown above was featured in 13 episodes of the television show "Street Tuner Challenge" where it beat an 801hp Twin-Turbo Nissan Skyline and a nitrous-charged Volkswagen Jetta by 7 and 15 seconds, respectively, to take the show's top honors. It was also featured in the April 2006 "Street Tuner" magazine as well as at SEMA and many Hot Import Nights events