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iis it or is it not illegal to purchase a ving tag and title to a car to convert yours to that vin? i ahve a convertable top frame from a 63 ss nova on craigslist i get an email guy wants the ss vin tages and title :eek: i thought that was illegal!? this is how the barret jackson people find so many hemi cars :LOL:
I`ve seen people selling vin tags on e-bay all the time, dont think its illegle,
however selling titles, thats something else
Well, there is illegal and then there is illegal. We rodders buy "Historical Documents" all the time because we want to "hang them on the wall." ;) But sometimes those end up being used to actually register a car. I think I have even met a few people who have done that. :rolleyes: :D
I know some people are afraid to remove the little tags from their pillows because they want to stay totally legal, however, we aren't redoing titles for 2008 cars here, we are generally just trying to get a car we put together from pieces on the road and haven't stolen it or any piece on it.
So, if you want to sell that title and vin plate to a guy who just wants to put a nice frame around it and hang it on the garage wall, have him send you a note saying that is what he is going to do with it. Then I think you are covered. I know some people say this isn't the right way to do this, but I bet a good percentage of the hot rods and old cars on the road were registered this way.
Don
Changing a VIN is certainly illegal unless done thru the proper channels such as getting a new vehicle number assigned by the state. Taking the VIN from one car and placing it on another is absolutely illegal.
Selling titles is something that is done everyday...when we sell a car, we are really selling the title to the car. However, using that title to register a car that the title does not belong to is also illegal....the word "fraud" comes to mind.
Selling your VIN tag and title is not illegal. For the buyer to buy it is not illegal. For the buyer to use it for the above purposes is probably illegal. Possession of a box of VIN tags and titles will probably cause the law to raise an eyebrow and perhaps do the rectal exam.
But, it's like everything else, if you do it on an older car, you probably are OK. If you do it on a new Corvette, it might be looked at more closely. It would be tough to have a car confiscated because of a shady title!
Mike in Tucson
Some states allow it and some do not. there is some paperwork that differs from state to state. A friend of mine sold a 70 mustang body shell on ebay for 1080.00. The guy from Florida showed up to get the car, in a car. They drove to the scrap yard hauling the body there on my friends trailer. They checked it in for scrap and photocopied the title, He pulled out a sawzall and cut the tags out took the title then handed my friend another 300.00 for his trouble and hit the highway.
Interesting topic. I have a set of 68 fastback stang tags from my son's old ride. Car was destroyed in a garage fire. We've been thinking about trying to sell them. But not quite sure how to go about it or the legal issues involved.
This subject comes up about every month or so on one forum or another. The absolute correct answer is "NO, IT IS ILLEGAL, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT."
However, in the real world how many vendors have you seen at swap meets with three ring binders full of titles and how many ads have you seen for these? It goes on every day in America, and 99.999 percent of the time nothing comes of it. I am just being practical. Many many hot rods and old cars would never see the highway if some creative registration didn't take place. This has gone on for decades that I know of, and is being done by folks who are as law abiding as any you could find.
If the States made it easier to title this sort of car there would be no need to do it, but they put us through so many hoops and with such strict requirements, it is sometimes the only way to do it.
Don
Folks, this is a federal offense in the making. Any time you move a VIN from one car to another without government approval (get it in writing from a state official at the very least), it is considered GRAND THEFT. I've got the complete tag set for a 1968 GT500KR convertible that I've been offered unbelievable amounts of money for just so someone could build a car around them. Thankfully SAAC has already been notified by myself and others to the cars demise, so no chance of it ever showing up should someone decide to reproduce a set of them from scratch. Again, this is a federal offense in the US. Not sure of other countries, but I would think there are laws governing this practice outside the US as well.
Bill S.
You see this a lot in chopper building, you cut the neck off your bike with the VIN number attached and then restore the frame around it. After all the hoops I had to jump through and ridiculous fees I had to pay to someone who knows nothing about the engineering that goes into it, I would probably do that if I ever build another. It cost me about $1000 in the end and took half the summer.
So if you cut the section of the body off with the tags on it is there a law that tells you how much of the car you can restore??? It's just a giant patch panel for the door sill, wheels included:D .
Sean
I can see both sides of the argument….Don’s that of titling basically a scratch built car and depending on the state whether it’s legal or not.
The other side of the coin that only has been touched on is taking a plain Jane car and changing the paper and turning it into something it never started out as….basically a car that has a lot more value. The real rub comes in when the car is passed off as a “real” whatever.
Scooters on the right track about what will happen in this case…….at some point in time someone will try to pass off a non-SS car as a real one. It’s part of the reason swapping tags and paper IS illegal.
he has a running driving car he wants to use an ss vin tag and title on to make it an ss the car is already been built. to bad id ont have either of those just this one part i should turn his *** in !
My biggest fear would be a stolen car, where the thief wants to sell it for big bucks, so he changesthe the tags and vin numbers, and suddenly the car looks legal to all of us!:mad:
I read an article which said that the company creating the new 69 camaros are building them around old firewalls with the VIN still attached. I think the quote was something like "..they are using up most of the junk 69 camaros around to build these cars..."
I thought that Unique, in Texas, was busted for basically doing the same thing with Mustangs?:confused:
Isn't SS is indicated by the cowl tag (under the hood), not the vin (on the dash)?
Kind of like what happened to the old Chargers after the Dukes of Hazzard!. I can't tell you how much it pained me to see the front end bend after a duke jump, only to be straight a second later as it rolled down the dirt road!
It is to my understanding that the 1's doing the '57 Chevy convert bodies are building around factory firewalls that the owners/ puchaser provides. wonder if the 1's with the Cameros are doing the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by 41willys
There is a difference between changing VIN tags on cars and building a new car around an existing firewall. A significant difference.
Changing VIN numbers on a car is fraud and, like others have pointed out, is a Federal offense. There is an element of deception involved.
Building a car using an old firewall plus a new sheetmetal body does not entail the element of deception since the existing VIN is not exchanged with another VIN....the lineage of the VIN is not changed. The latter (new sheetmetal and old firewall) is akin to reconstructing a wrecked car.
As someone said, the Body Tag has the SS info....but for some cars, the VIN also has some basic info....IF the SS was a trim option on that car in that year, the Trim Tag has it. If the SS is a model, the VIN may have a designator. For instance, my 1970 Z/28 had the Z/28 as a specific digit in the VIN and when I tried to pawn it off to the insurance company, they wouldnt believe it was a 6 cyl. because the model indicator said Z/28.
mike in tucson
Here is a VIN decoder for a 1965 Chevelle
1965 Chevelle/El Camino VINS ~ Chevellestuff.com
note that the VIN indicates the SS model plus the info if it is either a 6 cylinder SS or a V8 SS!!
The "buy a title" process was pretty standard procedure back in the day. If you bought a 30 Ford with no title, and managed to buy a title for a 30 Ford somewhere, that's how it was done. Most of the DMVs didn't care - and if they did, it was hard to catch.
However, it has been done so much that it's on the radar of the inspectors in most states. It's done, but it's taking a pretty severe risk.
Floyd Cotterpin got his fanny in a sling for using the "old title" process. Buying a title and representing it as the real title for a car built up from parts, a kit, or a car of the same year/make/model that was bought without a title is illegal virtually everywhere. In Virginia, it is a state felony. It is a separate felony to fill out the paperwork with false statements.
The camaro purists get pretty seamed anytime this comes up, as I suppose any collectors would. Some serious money can be made illegally by switching tags "cloning for profit". I can see their point. It would be like buying a priceless antique only to find out it's a clever knock off. :eek:
Jack,
Actually what got Coddington in trouble is that they were registering cars in a manner devised to circumvent the sales and registration taxes. The Cobra community was the original focus of the state gestapo...they discovered that folks were registering $50K ++ Cobras as 1965 Fords and the state of Kalifornia was missing out on a bunch of taxes and license fees. Of course, one gestapo guy made the connection to Coddington since he watched the show. Now, all of the states are wise to the ways to get cars registered.... here in Arizona, a $100,000 car pays an initial license fee (first year) of about $2000. Such makes it cheaper to buy an already-licensed car and "convert" it into the new car....and toss the donor car.
If you look closely at most government operations, there is a $$ motive...not a motive to help you and me.
Don't see it too much with bikes( I work in a bike shop) I do here about wood boat restores where a sliver of wood is reused and a new boat built around it. If I build a '32 thats much safer and better than the original and can get my hands on a title or registration, you bet your posi rear end I would use it. Better resale better chance of insurance and better chance to finance it too.Quote:
Originally Posted by sgo70
Robot,
That's one of the reasons the states clamped down - $$$$$.
Back when I registered my 30 A-bone (see my photos), the clerk argued with me because of the value. However, there was no way to enforce higher values for upgraded cars at the time. I asked them the clerk how she would tax my 68 GTO if I added a $20,000 engine and a $15,000 paint job. She said that was my business, but that a street rod 30 was a "special deal." I asked for a supervisor, and she told the clerk to register it as a 1930 Ford at minimum tax rates. My taxes on the A were about $45 a year.
I'm not commenting about the source of the title.