Rebodied cars and do they get certified

[COPO]

Jeff, what is your definition of a rebody? The hidden VINs don't match the VIN tag, or replacing so much sheet metal, little remains of the original car, but retaining the original cowl and the VIN's still match? How about a hypothetical former race car that had the firewall cut out including the hidden VINs, but the original trim and VIN tags remain and the rest of the car's sheet metal is original except for some patched 1/4 panels? Not an easy question to answer. I guess that is why survivor's can bring a premium.

[Rick H]

Steve,
Good point.

As for the body's, I really don't think that the company that produces the bodies did it to intentionally deceive anyone. It's the individual that buys the body, makes a clone and attempts to pass off the completed car as an original car that is doing the deceiving.
Believe me the differences between the repop bodies and original sheetmetal is such that any competent body shop can improve and make them correct.

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled debate....again.

Rick H.

[RichSchmidt]

As far as I know,the majority of scrutiny is aimed at the hidden vin stamped from inside the firewall over the heater box.This is impossible to duplicate,but if the original car had a clean panel in this area,and you did a good job of cutting the panel out of the old car and grafting it into a cleaner original body,you would despell 80 percent of the naysayers.There are also numbers on the subframe,so it would be beter to use the original one.I know 2nd gens had the number at the tail end of the driver's side subframe rail,but I think 1st gens had a number behind the steering box.Of course unless the donor car was chem striped or media blasted by a real expert,you would find old paint that could signal a color mismatch.It is really up to the buyer to check this all out before buying a car.I dont doubt that at least a few rebodies will show up over the years.The sad part is that once it is discovered,you can kind of assume that the original is a toyota by now.

[NCGuy68]

[ QUOTE ]
As far as I know,the majority of scrutiny is aimed at the hidden vin stamped from inside the firewall over the heater box.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pardon the correction. There is no hidden vin stamped anywhere. They have repop serial numbers in various locations, but they in no way relate to original vin numbers.

[Belair62]

Jeff...there are 2 real black COPO Chevelles...Black with a red side stripe which was restored by Mickey Hale and I think is in Arizona and a Black/white stripe California built car which resides in my garage. I can send you to a website where a lot of the rebodied cars originate and reside if you need info on how to rebody a car. It must be pretty easy to do...

[NCGuy68]

Bob .......How do the so called rebody shops treat the original vin? If its even there?

[Belair62]

Don't know Craig...

[CamarosRus]

As someone who PARTED OUT an Original 69 ZL-1 Camaro, I'm following this thread.........and yes today, THAT same ZL-1 with the ONLY Original born with piece being the VIN tag and otherwise TOTALLY fabricated from other 69 Camaro parts lives on, WITH certification.

Chuck

[JChlupsa]

Chuck, The question on that car would be was certification done knowing the car was a rebody? If so did the Certification indicate so? Where it gets messy is when you take a $20K car and put a $200K VIN plate on the car and sell it for $250K+ and try to pass it off as one.

[hep1966]

This post is not directed to anyone in particular so please don’t think that I’m out to get anyone.

Where is the line drawn in the restoration or repair of a car?

Replace fender or fenders due to rust or crash.
Replace 1/4s due to rust or crash.
Replace trunk floor due to rust or crash.
Replace rear inner wheel wells due to rust or crash.
Replace rockers due to rust or crash.
Replace roof due to rust or crash.
How do any of the above things constitute fraud? They don't.

Weld in a piece of metal to repair hole in firewall.
Weld in a bigger piece of metal to repair firewall.
Any fraud yet? No.

Weld in a huge piece of metal to repair your firewall. In doing so the hidden VIN has been eliminated.
Any fraud yet? No. You simply replaced what needed to be replaced.

Take parts of your firewall and/or dash assembly and weld them onto a pre-assembled replacement body kit. Any fraud here? No. You are simply replacing rusted or crashed body parts with new parts. Many if not all cars built today have VINs on body and frame parts. When newer cars are crashed and have parts replaced, do you think it is fraudulent? Of course not. Frames get replaced every day in body shops all over the country. The cars and trucks keep their original VINs. So why all the fuss? Why should anyone think that a car should be confiscated or destroyed because of replacement body parts with the work being done as outlined above? What difference does it make if you replace parts one at a time or many parts at one time?

What should happen to all of those vintage racecars that crashed earlier this year? From some of the postings in these forums I see that some of you think those cars are now worthless junk. If anyone tries to fix them, they would be committing fraud. Oh wait, those are special cars owned by special people. So it's OK to fix them. The common folk have to resort to kit car classification.