[TR] Government at its worst - 3 queries

[John Macartney]

Guys,

I have a query, though not strictly to do with this particular thread - but hopefully your replies 
may set my mind at rest?
As many of you know, I'm doing a drive across the US and Canada next year for charity in a '73 Stag 
that Joe 'Stagmeister' Pawlak and his 40 friends at ISOA are currently busy rebuilding. AFAIK, the 
car is currently titled in Illinois and I guess it'll remain that way when the event starts and 
hopefully goes to its conclusion. My query is this - though it is now based on the experiences of 
Brit friends of mine who visited the US some years ago.

TITLE
I believe (though can't be sure) that the title will be in my name for the purposes of the trip. As 
a non-US resident, am I likely to run into any trouble on this technicality as a whole, especially 
as the car will be leaving and re-entering the US to and from Canada twice during the trip with me 
in it on both occasions. Am I likely to get 'stuffed' by some frontier official who doesn't know the 
rule book and finds him/herself in a "more than my job's worth" situation?

REGISTRATION
One of my friends entered one State in a loaned car and because it bore licence plates of a 
relatively distant State and he was using his British driving licence, it seemed he had to 
re-licence the car on the plates of that State before going any further. Allegedly this caused 
horrendous problems for the owner when the car eventually got back to its home State.

LICENCE
All the paperwork I've read on websites for rubber-necking tourists like me, indicates I can safely 
drive a US licenced and US insured car on a British (read full European licence) without further let 
or hindrance. That's what worries me. Another friend (five years back) was in a rental car he'd 
picked up in Oregon and had driven to San Francisco to see the bridge and streetcars. He maintains 
he got stopped in a police spot-check and because the police chappie didn't recognise his licence as 
one issued in any US State, he was required to take a California state driving test before going any 
further.

Both the people referred to above are absolutely honest and I don't doubt what they told me for one 
instant. However, my trip is going to be keeping to some very tight schedules and the last thing I 
want is some gun-toting bloke appearing at my driving window and telling me I can't proceed because 
I've "infringed" some law I ought to know all about - but don't. I admit my tolerance levels when 
confronted with 'offialdom' is on a short fuse and recognising that a punch on the nose is likely to 
offend, it occurs to me that now would be a good time to garner the collective thoughts of the list. 
Replies off-list are probably better as my request doesn't have much to do with assymetric scrunge 
brackets being fitted in the driver's door of a TR (or not) during the 1975 build year.

In expectation

Jonmac