Bill Gates liked to enjoy his money, but when Microsoft cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen had their 959s impounded by U.S. Customs officials in Oakland, California in the early ’90s, Gates decided to fight back.
Imported by none other than Canepa himself for the cofounders and others, they all soon found themselves in a frustrating back and forth with the US government. According to an Autoweek article from 2003, the initial reaction was to declare Canepa a manufacturer like RUF to expedite the process, but it appears the group wasn’t getting any help on the political front to do so.
This is when Gates suggested the crew take a legal approach, and soon after, Canepa found Washington D.C. attorney Warren Dean. “Dean went to EPA, NHTSA, and all the major manufacturers, to keep everyone happy,” Canepa told Autoweek. ” We formulated a law that if 500 or fewer cars were produced, if they weren’t currently produced, if they were never US-legal, and if they were rare, you could import them without having to pass DoT standards. As long as they met EPA standards and were driven no more than 2,500 miles per year, they’d be legal.”
