Christina Dravis dragged a tiny, imported truck 300 miles north from a dealer in Maryland to her home in upstate New York, only to find out it was illegal to drive.
That's when she joined the resistance.
"Kei" cars, the minuscule trucks, vans and sports cars native to Japan, are popping up across the U.S. despite carmakers not making or selling them here. Owners like Dravis are giving them a second life as recreational vehicles and even work trucks.
But they're running into roadblocks; New York is one of several states that typically block owners from registering them.
Now, an indignant coalition of kei-loving New Yorkers, known as the Empire State Kei Advocates, is fighting back.
The ban is "incredibly stupid," said Justin Dedonna, a Long Island mechanic who's on his third kei truck. "The least of the New York DMV's problems is what the hell I'm doing with my weird little truck."
The goal, according to the advocates' manifesto, is to build a following "of like-minded individuals" that, with the backing of the local car community and importers, will push lawmakers to make kei cars legal in the state.
Their fight began when Joey Iorio, a construction worker, pulled into work and saw his boss sporting one of the compact vehicles.
"I just kind of fell in love," he said. When he couldn't get one for himself, Iorio scoured the internet for allies.
He found them in people like Dravis. In between driving her new truck up and down the driveway, she's been penning letters to state legislators.
So have many others -- an eclectic band of auto enthusiasts, mechanics, farmers and small-business owners united by their love of the tiny machines. Iorio partnered with David McChristian, who had founded a similar group in Texas.
Kei cars, short for "keijidosha," meaning "light vehicles," are mostly unique to Japan and have been favored by buyers there for decades. They come in all shapes and sizes, but all are tiny by American standards. They top out around 11 feet long -- about half a crew-cab on a Ford F-150 -- and have engines more akin to motorcycles than automobiles.
Japanese drivers in big cities and rural areas alike favor kei cars for their cheaper insurance, superb fuel economy and maneuverability. American fans have to buy them from an importer, and, due to safety and emissions regulations, the cars must be 25 years old or older.
For the world's largest automaker, that's an opportunity. Toyota said this week it will sell a new kei truck in the U.S. under its revived Scion brand. To keep it legal in all 50 states, it will be restricted to just 25 miles an hour.
In the past few years, the business of importing used cars and trucks from Japan has roared. Shops have popped up across the country that specialize in kei car sales and imports. They typically cost anywhere from about $5,000 to $15,000, and draw lots of attention on American roads.
State DMVs have paid attention, too. Georgia, Maine and other states ban them from the roads outright. Other fans won legal battles in states like Texas and Vermont.
New York has language in its DMV guidelines explicitly denying the vehicles' registration unless they are proven to meet U.S. safety and emissions standards at the time of production -- which would be essentially impossible.
The New York state DMV declined to comment.
Enforcement of New York's law has been uneven. Some owners, like Dedonna, said they registered their trucks without a problem. Some fans have navigated gray markets to secure license plates, oftentimes registering their vehicles out of state.
Others play it fast and loose at the DMV. Noah Becker registered his 1998 Suzuki Carry by describing it as a normal pickup truck. Now he drives it to work in the Buffalo area every day.
Some organizers, like Iorio, are resigned to a state of desperate lobbying.
An online petition has garnered more than 1,000 signatures and some emotional pleas. "I don't want to buy an overpriced useless modern truck with creepy cameras and other distracting things like a huge tablet to control everything," one signatory wrote.
The kei-car community insists that the vehicles are safer than plenty of vehicles already on the road, like motorcycles and even older vintage cars.
"A friend of mine has a 1903 horseless carriage with a motor that he's able to register as a historical vehicle," Dravis said. "And I can't register my little truck?"
Buffalo-area resident Ernie Thalhamer noticed Becker's Suzuki and tracked him down on Facebook. Then Thalhamer got his own truck and registered it in Montana, where such laws have historically been much looser.
He and Becker are friends now, and they've joined the fight. Thalhamer spotted a state assemblyman at a cocktail hour recently and made his pitch.
The effort is being closely watched by kei activists around the country, who hope that if New York legalizes the trucks, others will follow. Some see the fight as a broader means of pushing back against the bulky, expensive cars that now dominate the American landscape.
"Vehicles are in an arms race for who can be bigger," said John Heylin, who has pushed for a similar bill in Oregon.
But the 6'3" Oregonian does, unfortunately, need a bigger car. "I hopped into the thing," Heylin said, "and my knees stuck out the window."