[njsteve]

Here is the final verdict from someone in the legal profession:

Removing the VIN from one body and placing it on a DIFFERENT body is illegal. Period, end of story.

Removing the VIN from a body to replace a rusty part and then reinstalling it on the SAME body, is not seen as a criminal offense by most law enforcement agencies. Some states require a law enforcement witness to the removal and reinstallation but it is more of a motor vehicle-related infraction and not the major felony that VIN swapping is. Replacing a single panel on the original body or a large number of panels does not alter the classification.

That is how the law enforcement agencies, state and federal, view it.

Just because some car owner's club or restoration judging entity creates a classification for "air cars" or "rebodies" etc., doesn't alter the fact that the car is illegal and the act of creating it is a serious crime.

It is only a matter of time until an example is made of one of these VIN swapped, rebodied, high dollar, high publicity cars. It will take one of these Franken-cars to get seized for the violation to be finally taken seriously by the unscrupulous traders and "restorers."

It is the duty of all enthusiasts of bonafide cars to raise a stink every time one of these rebodied/VIN swapped abortions comes to light, because when they do come up for auction and the publicity leads them to sell for 1/3 of what the seller has into it, then the purveyors of these rolling felonies will finally stop dealing in them and go back to selling swamp land in Florida.

Here's a reall life example: Remember that Rally green, rebodied "low mileage" Z/28 that sold at the BJ Las Vegas auction last year? The stink raised by that car was probably the reason that the same buyer did not go anywhere near the green ZL1. (Even the really creepy backrubbing by Mr. Sunglasses, caught on camera, couldn't get him to bid on the ZL1) Very wise move by the bidder to keep his wallet closed during that sale, and without him in the bidding mix, the car was not bid up to real ZL1 value territory. Obviously, the intelligent people present that evening saw he wasn't bidding and took that as a hint to stay away.