Originally Posted by
HughH
Dave, Richard,
Without knowing the details of the DOT process in the US I would hazard a guess that this "66" thing is US specific to attempt to get around DOT red tape as you suggest in your post.
Clearly there were "65" models in other countries but maybe due to the low number of genuine MY65 cars (ie produced before August 65) likely to be imported to the US, the lack of a clear change in specifications between the MY65 and MY66 cars, and the European practice of starting the new model year in August, as well as the 356 still being produced in 1965 Porsche was able to convince the DOT that ALL 911's were 1966 cars so far as DOT paperwork was concerned.
This would probably lessen the amount of paperwork Porsche had to do to separately certify the 65 cars as meeting US regulations when only a few cars were involved and there was minimal differences between them - at least so far as the authorities were concerned (obviously not as far as some members of this board are concerned).
Taking this thought a bit further this may be an underlying reason for the messy delineation between MY65 and MY66 cars (the only year that this occurs to my knowledge even with 356's) that has been cataloged in various threads on this board.