I was reading this article on the secondchancegarage.com site (http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/723.cfm) and they were saying how this guys was gonna take an old mustang that was completely rusted out, get a new factory-made shell and just transfer VIN numbers. I don't know about you guys, but i would be royally ticked if someone was selling me a 65 fastback and it turns out that its actually a kit car with a 65 fastback VIN.

 

Sounds illegal to me.

 

thats cause it is

 

This is an issue that is going to be raising its ugly head for quite some time to come...

The people who support being able to change the VIN numbers will tell you there's nothing illegal about changing everything else on the car (doors/engine/frame/etc), so why does "shell" become the "soul" of the VIN?

On the other hand, people who do not support it will tell you that it is flat out "misrepresentation" or maybe even "fruad".

This debate is going to be ugly, that's for sure.

 

It would be like someone buying a Model T kit and selling it as an original Model T. I jus don't think thats right. If i were to buy it and find out that it was a kit, I'd be sueing someone fo sho.

 

If it was legal to do that then you could take any Pontiac Tempest, find a couple of VIN tags and voila, you have a GTO, or turn any pedestrian 6cyl. Mustang into an "original" R code. There is a very good reason that it is illegal.

I was reading in my Hemming Muscle Magazine where the Feds busted some guy in NY for turning a Mopar, either a Charger or Cuda I believe, into a "correct" Hemi. They nailed his miserable *** too. Very stiff penalties. Cudos to the Feds....for once.

 

i really dont see the difference between taking the vin and transfering it toa re-po shelland just replacing all of the sheetmetal of a rusted out car with re-po stuff. either way its not the original car but one way is just a whole lot easier than the other. at least its not going to the crusher.

 

there is a diffrence, a huge diffrence those fake ponys were not made by the Ford Motor Company back in the 60's. these are made by some small company in 2007,switching vins is fraud that vin tells people that car (shell) is original...well thats my two cents.

 

Well how do people get titles for kit cars? like the cobra and 32 hiboy kits, I thought they used slave cars and their vins for titles.... might be wrong (probably am) but they get street legal some how. What about these dynacorn bodys that are just shells how are they getting titles for them.

 

The philosophical question is what is a car? Is it the frame? Is it the unibody? Is itthe VIN tag? People buy and use donor cars all the time. What if your frame was bent up in a wreck and you used the frame from a donor? Is that your original car? What if your body was rusted all to pieces and instead of cutting and hacking patches, you used the unibody from a donor on your frame, engine, tranny, etc.?
I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do have my opinions as do everyone else. With guns, the action is considered the "gun". The action is what is regulated and licensed, not the barrel, scope, etc. You can buy new barrels, stocks, clips, sights, etc. for an action and the registration does not change. The action is controlled by the ATF thru FFL dealers.
My opinion is that a car should be and can be treated much like a firearm. The registration and VIN should follow the frame. As long as the frame is the same, the rest of the car is replaceable. The frame can be modified much like a firearm action can be, but the registation follows that one piece. If someone should make their own frame and take old parts to creat the car, then it would be registered much like a custom built trailer and dated as the date it is registered for the first time. In the event that a mustang frame is used to create a AC Cobra kit car, the registration would say something like 1986 Mustang (Modified). It would not say AC Cobra year 2007.
JMHO