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There are ethics and there are "ethics".
1) Is it ethical to call a car an original COPO, when some/all the drivetrain and panels have been replaced, with numbers matching and/or NOS parts?
2) Is it ethical to even call it a COPO, when all that is COPO is the magic VIN or a piece of paper?
Replace COPO, with Yenko, Motion, Z-28, RS, SS, LS6, etc. and ask the same 2 questions.
The line seems to be indistinct for most people, it appears that a lot of people want to set it at the number matching replaced Trim Tag.
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According to Federal Law, it is the VIN that makes the car what it is. So, therefore the VIN and the body it was ORIGINALLY attached to, are what makes a COPO a COPO.
Engine, tranmissions, rears, etc., can be replaced and the car is still a COPO. But if you remove that VIN tag and put it on another body, the result is that you no longer have that orginal car (and you've committed a Federal felony as an added bonus...And no they don't care that you pulled it off of a rusted-beyond-repair car to salvage a historical automobile by placing it on a rust free body)
As for firewall data tags, you can do whatever you feel with one. *But if you attach it to another car in order to match how you've built that car and then represent it as that new car, you are committing fraud. And even if you tell the guy you sell the car to, that the tag was placed on there and it's not from that car originally you may still get sued, when your buyer then sells the car to someone else and lies about it...You will be part of the civil lawsuit when buyer #3 looks for deep pockets, because it was foreseeable that seller #2 would represent the car as real. You may even win your part of the lawsuit but you will be out a ton of $$$ for legal fees.
