I dunno but California still has obvious ways to get through things. I took My Z-28 to DMV after it had a non-operation status lifted when I restored it.

A girl about 18 comes over and starts looking for numbers. Not body VIN#s, not engines #s. What ever she was looking for she found on the glove compartment door and excluded all else! The state people zero in on one thing blocking out all else.

When I brought my Packard from outta state they didn't even look at it well. Since there was no VIN exactly people that lost ID plates had enginr #s put on their titles. Change an engine an it's a problem. Well there's a different body number on the firewall too and they didn't know what they were looking at. Thay saw a number that was on the title and that was that. They didn't care where the number was. It's not specified like a modern VIN.

It doesn't matter if it's a pure street rod or something else cause no body at DMV knows all the different ways and places numbers appeared on all cars of the past.

In your case they're going to look see on pre '73 cars if the smog stuff is still there- even if it is exempt now due to age, it's still supposed to be there. But nobody checked that when I took my '73 Z-28 to DMV for re-registering after non-operation status.

If you built a kit car you'd have a # tag somewhere that the manufacturer provided. Don't they state where and what specific #s have to be in NC? If it is on the firewall and there's some tag there that should be all they care about. If as you say it is a state inspector and not and inspection(for safety) it's just a guy looking for a number plate to create a title.