Tom Zat, owner of Alfa Heaven – an Alfa Romeo restorer who also sells military-surplus vehicles, has delivered a declaration to WisDOT, demanding that they cease refusal of title and unrestricted registration for ex-military vehicles which met U.S. Safety Standards (FMVSS) when they were manufactured. Copies have gone out to the Governor and legislative members of the Transportation Committees.

Tom is not asking to change any state or federal laws. Rather, he wants to force WisDOT to follow existing laws, which require them to offer normal (Auto, Truck, Farm, RV, etc.) registration options for all FMVSS-compliant ex-military vehicles, in addition to the collector options (Collector, Antique, HMV, Hobbyist).

He intends to file suit against WisDOT, unless they immediately resolve this matter.

His submitted files include examples of ex-military vehicles with FMVSS labels, vehicles which WisDOT has refused to register for him. He includes the VIN data tables which WisDOT must refer to in order to determine FMVSS-compliance of an ex-military vehicle. WisDOT refuses to use these tables, instead claiming that ex-military vehicles are all illegal since the VIN isn’t on their computer. DMV prefers to outlaw these vehicles, merely for the sake of their own clerical convenience.

You all remember Trans-123, which we recently killed off? Well, Trans-123 was introduced during this fight back in ’08. DOT is still grinding that axe.

What can you do, and why should you do it?

The best thing you can do to help out this relatively small segment of our hobby is call your Senator and Assembly Rep., and ask them to contact WisDOT Secretary Gottlieb, and tell him you support Tom Zat’s demands that DMV follow existing laws concerning ex-military vehicles. Click here to locate your representatives.

You may not own an ex-military vehicle, and you may wonder why you should care about another guy who wants “normal” unrestricted registration on his. He’s not really a collector, right? Well, WisDOT considers all ex-military vehicles to be nonstandard vehicles, just like all your hotrods, modifieds, and just plain “old” cars. Whether your car is green, or not, we all need to stand united to prevent WisDOT from making arbitrary decisions to toss someone’s vehicle off the road without the legal authority to do so. This time it’s someone’s green truck, next time it might be you and your car. We must stand united.

I will gladly send copies of Tom’s submitted files to anyone who requests them. There are 6 files, and I don’t know how to post them here. So if you want them, please get me your direct email address. If you can post them here, or forward them on, that would be great.

Paul
undy@mhtc.net