[70 copo]

Motown,

Amazed... at how long a simple issue like this goes on and on. In my opinion when ANY significant part of the car has to be replaced - it is no longer the car that came off the assembly line. There are also levels of comfort with individual owners and buyers. They have to decide what they will accept and buy. The buyer and the market drives who pays what - and what is saleable.

Gentlemen, this is what we all collectively call a "restored" car.

As for the FBI and legal issues.. attempting to beat this dead horse further is like trying to regulate rules for the bedroom. The goverment has tried this and look stupid each time. As for cars, the FBI historically had a track record of coming after the large scale late model chop shops- where the "real" money was - and lately the salvage title and multiple hidden VIN stampings on late model autos, used car crash histories, and insurance tracking-has really made this a non issue with them. Now the issue today is the tracing of stolen parts and the export of stolen cars and parts. Back to the old stuff - (on a camaro as an example) As every one knows the lower front fire wall attaches at a spot welded seam in the front of the floors. Further, the top of the cowl is also spot welded at the top of the body cowl in the front. As I recall you could order almost every part of the body from GM except a very few body parts. As I remember the critical ones that you could not get was the front cowl and the D/S tunnel, Most other parts could be ordered from GM-new. As an example-on most cars prior to salvage titles there was big money to be made when a car got hit hard in the rear. The practice was to find a donar car and "clip" the entire rear. When these cars began to fail after repair- is when the goverment got in to the act and regulated rebuilders with salvage titles. But now hear this... the goverment has not been completly out of the picture. As many may recall goverment ordered scrappage programs have been operating in several states for quite some time to allow industry to buy back pollution credits.
this legislation also had an additional side effect of further drying up the old car parts market which some of us call a "parts car". It is up to the buyer and the seller to police this hobby. Bottom line buyers need information if the seller is deceptive,or the work on any part of the restored car is shoddy. Again buyer beware. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]