>quote name =Anchorman I'm sure someone will step up to this, but I'll take a shot...
>I believe ROW is less elitist than you might think. It has to do with the unique regulations with which cars made for the US market have to comply, and which >require "unique" (i.e., US-only, not ROW) elements. I think this are largely safety-related, but were (and still may be, I'm not sure) emissions-related.
You are correct most manufacturers make "North American" vehicles that comply with, mostly, US DOT regs and EPA emissions regs. Mostly because most cars that comply with US regs comply in Canada.
>quote name='jeff968' Even though Canada is part of the North American market they often get cool stuff that the US does not.
In some cases, yes. Mostly due to vehicles with non-emissions compliant engines. The SMART diesels come to mind. AFAIK, CA also has more lenient regulations regarding small-scale manufacturers which allows for import of vehicles like TVRs, Marcos, Catherham, etc.
>This applies to the 968 as well.
Not according to my parts catalogs. Every Porsche listed, going all the way back to the 356, lists US/Canada models and ROW models. Even prior to the advent of DOT safetly regs in 1967, North America and Europe had different regulations regarding turn signals, headlights, and IIRC, bumper height.