Can a vehicle be seized without a warrant?

In McCormick an automobile that had been used in a counterfeiting operation was seized without a warrant under authority of a federal forfeiture statute. ²⁴ We recognized that, despite the forfeiture statute, the seizure could not be valid unless it fit within one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. No exception applied. The "automobile exception," first established in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), did not apply because there were no exigent circumstances that justified moving quickly to seize. The automobile in McCormick had been sitting unused in the defendant's driveway for over two months. We held the seizure invalid.

We distinguished McCormick in United States v. Kimak, 624 F.2d 903 (9th Cir.1980). In Kimak the vehicle was still actively being used in the illegal enterprise,

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