um, you kinda have that wrong. not completely.
in japan they register the car as the production date, not the model date.
like one of my 240's had a production date of 11/88. here its still registered as an 89.
in japan it would have been registered as an 88.
but yeah, to some extent, they do get he cars earlier, but thats normal for most home markets. europe gets the benzes, and bmws before us, etc.