1969 Z11 Camaro Convertible Pace Car Wrecked Shell

[njsteve]

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why would anyone even want to place the vin and trim plates from an original car to the new bodies?

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Unfortunately there are people out there who, 1) instead of taking the time/money to restore a car, (due to the massive amounts of $$$ involved) or 2) want to change the color/trim/engine options on their car and then represent it as an original car, or 3) who have a car that is too rusted, or 4) have a car with a suspect past (stolen), will try to just take the VIN tag off of the old car and put it on the new car and then represent the "new" car as the original car. There are people on both sides of the fence on the issue, i.e. whether is it justified in certain cases or not, i.e., a rusted beyond recogntion 71 Hemicuda convertible. But the fact is: that until the laws are repealed or revised (unlikely) to suit the realities of the restoration community (and illegal chop shop operators in some cases), it is still a felony to swap VINs from one body to another.

I don't see the Federal law ever getting revised because it would gut the original intent of the law, allowing auto thieves to open up "legal" chop shops everywhere. If you're not familiar with how they operate, one of the common scenarios is that the chop shop will legitimately buy a totaled 2002 Camaro for say, $500 and then have one of their thieves steal a similar 2002 Camaro off the street. They will then swap the VIN off of the totalled car and place it on the stolen car, thereby turing their $500 investment into a $25,000 profit.

Wow, this is sounding much too much like work. Can we go back to making fun of fake white 68 Yenkos on ebay now?