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Heres a hypothetical: Theres a 71 Hornet SC in a junkyard missing the door tag and VIN. However, behind the powersteering on the firewall the VIN is stamped. If this car is purchased with title does the new owner have the right to reclaim their missing tags?
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Sure, why not? Whoever took the tags in the first place comitted a federal offense. If you own the car and can track your tags down, you own them by default in my mind. If the fake car has been sold in the meantime, then the current owner would have grounds to go after whoever sold him the fake, but the tags are yours regardless. I'm no lawyer, but that's my take on it.
But if even the body stampings are gone, well, that's it. Unless you can somehow dig up old paper with a VIN and establish some kind of ownership history, there's nothing you can do. I can think of 12 or 15 high end cars just off the top of my head in northeast Kansas that have been completely stripped of all numbers. If I looked through some of my old notebooks, I could probably double that number. That's just what I've seen with my own two eyes, forget about the stuff I've heard of second hand.
In one year, I parted out and crushed the two Super Bees I mentioned above, along with a 69 Z/28 because every number had been stripped off the bodies. In all three cases, they were cars that had sat in backwoods salvage yards for 20 or more years. No paperwork, no hope of finding a previous owner, so what can you do?
