[njsteve]

It's not as crazy as it sounds: if, after the fire, the previous owner pulled the tag off the firewall to get someone to decypher the paint code, it's a plausible possibility. I bring this up because years ago I checked out a 426 Hemi Charger Daytona that had its VIN plate peeled off of its dash with a screw driver. It ripped about 1/4 of the tag off. Why did someone do this you ask???? In early 1969 there was a paperwork discrepency with the Charger 500s and Daytonas. The VINs start with XX29 on a 500 and Daytona versus XS29 on a Charger R/T. After the cars left the factory, local motor vehicle offices started noticing the discrepency with cars showing the actual XX29 VIN plates but the manufacturer's paperwork showing XS29. On the Daytona I looked at, an owner somewhere along the line ran into this DMV problem and instead of trailering the car to the DMV inspector to show them and explain it was just a typographical error on the title, he used a screw driver and pried off the entire VIN plate. You can imagine the response he got at the DMV. He was lucky to leave the DMV with his original VIN in hand, normally they would have confiscated it. But now, 20 or 30 years later, the car has a torn up VIN plate and a bizarre, though true explanation. Maybe something ridiculously similar happened here?