As I said before, the originally proposed project would not be a rebody under the Federal motor vehicle VIN statutes.
That means the guy doing it and the guy ownng it are not at risk of being arrested/prosecuted, and/or having the car seized as contraband in the way a VIN tag swap would most certainly be.
Otherwise this "rebody" argument will end up being more like the "survivor" term argument - everybody has their own opinion on an esoteric discussion topic with no true answer.
Some people just don't seem to get it: if you take the VIN tag off of one body and put it on another body, IT IS A FELONY. It doesn't matter what your reason was, (restoration as compared to auto theft) - it still gets covered under the Federal chop-shop statutes. There is no restoration exemption.