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Personally I think that's a waste of taxpayer's money. Why can't they just get a European car, and if they've got something special at home they either store it in a garage or pay to have it shipped over themselves?
So these possibilities are some of the "bonbons" or "goodies", the government offers to their soldiers, when they go abroad. And the US government is not the only one.
Have you known, that it's usual, that soldiers, stationatred in foreign countries, are living always tax-free? Perhaps nowadays it's not that extreme any more, but I've heard it from former German soldiers, who had been in Budel/NL or in Belgium.
@G-Mann: the GI's have to think about two economic facts:
a) if they take their own car from home in the other country, they don't need to spend money for annother one (perhaps something, they don't know or don't want to have, or aren't able to drive), but they loose money, if they would sell it abroad. They can drive around with US-spec cars, but when this car will be sold, it has to be changed for the EU-laws (indicators, tinted windows, brake-lights etc) and finally the very most of the US-cars are unknown and unpopular over here.
b) they can buy cars in the other country, but then they have to learn, how to handle it. They can be cheap, too for them. So here the GI's are often buying old and big Mercedes and BMW in rough condition, which wouldn't pass the German TÜV or which are unattractive for local people (too high taxes, too high insurance, to many costs for maintenance).
When they go back to the USA, they have to think, if they have a use for them or can sell them again. Otherwise: they don't have to pay money for the shipping, so not rarely they take quith rotten cars back with them.
Btw.: the actual known three K 70 in the USA had made this career as former GI-cars. This way to change car between the countries and continents can cause nice chances for car-lovers - a good and cheap chance to get a real strange and unknown car.
So the father of my Japanese friend had in 1961, as his first own car, something hyperrare, a 1959 Ford Taunus [P2], one of two in Japan. This car was brought by a GI from Germany to Okinawa.
At least all this has annother nice results for license-plate-collectors: plates of foreign soldiers are always, in every country, quite rare and hard to get.
