<VV> rebodied corvairs

[Bill Elliott]

>I am planning on replacing a rusted out '65 turbo Corsa with a solid body.
>My question is what about the title and associated paper work?  My donor has
>all the proper paper work but the solid shell doesn't. Do you also switch
>all VIN tags and ID codes?  What happens if is ever sold?  These are some of
>my concerns.

The UK has very specific rules to deal with situations like this (having to do with percentages of content, etc) .... the US does not.  I think if you carefully 
followed strict legal guidance, you would be unable to do a "rebody". (As an example, it is technically against the law to install an engine in a vehicle that 
was manufactured after the engine block....)

As a practical means, the most usual tactic is to completely change the vehicle identity, VIN and all.  (This method, while strictly speaking against US and 
most state law, IS the legal way to do it in most other parts of the world, seeing the body sheel as just another "part".) As long as there is no fraud involved 
I've not seen anybody charged.

In the high dollar car world (Ferraris and the like), many have completely new bodies or bodies reclaimed from other vehicles. As long as the builder had the 
legal right to the actual car idientification being used and as long as the swap is not being done with fraudulent intent, this is the accepted manner.

As an example, I have a MK1 Mini Cooper S, the most valuable of the Minis. However, I know that my car is a rebody... the original body was totalled and 
ALL of the Cooper S bits were moved to an appropriate donor shell... done to such a level that only a real expert could tell the difference. (And since I know 
the difference, I could pretty readily "fix" those issues and pass it off as the real deal.... 

It's a strictly intellectual argument on whether a "properly" rebodied car is the real thing or not.... in most of the world it would be as long as the underlying 
identifcation were real.

However, in the Mini world, the value _does_ take a "hit" due to the rebody, but the car is still recognized as a "Cooper S", setting it apart from a 
"Cooperized" Mini (where someone simply added the Cooper S stuff to a normal shell)...the difference being ownership of the real thing that served as the 
basis.

Our Stingers are much the same. I think the majority have been rebodied (including the one I had).  A true numbers matching Stinger can be be proven to 
NOT be rebodied will always have a price premium over an equally nice car that HAS had a rebody (even if EVERYTHING were moved), but both are 
worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than the BEST Stinger "copy" (that was done without the benefit of the original car to work with.)

My best example of this issue was recently decided in a Shelby Mustang case. The Shelby in question was "rebodied" into a clean shell. Everything 
(including the welded on Shelby tag) was moved. The subsequent owner of the old shell was able to "prove" ( I assume thru a hidden VIN) that his car was 
the REAL Shelby and that he was entitiled to use the Shelby number. The owner of the rebodied car said that the Shelby identifcation existed with the 
equipment and the Shelby tag, not with the body. It was decided on the Shelby tag alone.... that the person that owned the Shelby tag (even without the 
Shelby equipment or the original body) owned the Shelby.

Bill Elliott