<VV> Hidden VINs

[airvair at earthlink.net]

All this talk of VIN's reminds me of the time someone came to the
convention with "the perfect concours car." It was a perfectly polished VIN
plate. Since there are no deductions for what's not there, they reasoned
that it would get a perfect concours score. LOL

But you bring up an interesting point. At what point does "replacement
parts" alter the car's identity? Could you use an entire Corvair body shell
as "the world's largest replacement assembly?" Seems to me that if the job
were done perfectly, who's to know any different? 

You've got to remember that most legislators are clueless when it comes to
the car hobby. Thus laws are usually not written to provide for us car
hobby persons. Rather, they only are meant to prevent dishonest people from
committing fraud via ID swapping of stolen property and (possibly) legally
held property. That's the only thing the legislators can see as happening.
Thus the laws simply don't take into account legitimate reasons for massive
replacement of parts in the restoration of someone's hobby car. And THAT is
the real problem. So I think "intent to defraud" should be the overrulling
factor.

I once encountered a similar problem just trying to transport a legally
bought car home from out of state. Seems you can't "legally" register (and
hence drive) a car until it's inspected IN STATE.(Heck, you can't even get
it TO an inspection station legally, even after you get it INto the state.)
But what if you can't get it INto the state without driving it? Catch 22! 
What I did was to "borrow" another car's plates, and hope (should I have
been stopped for any reason) that the officer would be sympathetic and look
the other way. Fortunately, nothing happened. And yes, I DID drive it to
the inspection station on the other car's tags. Double Catch 22.

-Mark


> [Original Message]
> Subject: <VV> Hidden VINs
>
> Smitty Says:  Some of you are coming on pretty strong about the idea of
re-VINing a car by changing the plate and title because the hidden number
doesn't match.  I won't argue the legality of that but here is something
else to consider.  How about the thousands and thousands of cars that have
suffered collision damage and got front end clips.  Perfectly legal back in
the day when "salvage" titles and "reconstructed" titles didn't exist. 
Does the title match the hidden VIN anymore?
> Not that I can imagine a body shop replacing such an item even when
the cars were new, but I have seen stacks of NOS front frame assemblys on
pallets.  No numbers on them and it would be illegal to put them on.  
>