Barrett Jackson Las Vegas

[Les Quam]

There are no grey area's here this car appears to have the identity of another car. The person who sold those documents and hidden cowl VIN is still displaying them on his websight. The US attorney's office will prosecute the case if the investigation confirms that these allegations are true not a state prosecutor since the car traveled over state lines. As a former prosecutor I can tell you this case is simple and a rookie could try this case.

The experts opinion would only shield a "seller in good faith" not the person who restored the car or a dealer who sold the car knowing it had its identity switched.

Even the worlds best expert cannot determine if a car has been altered in this fashion. Vehicle identity alterations to this level with this kind of documentation defy experts discovery.

I have never met or spoke too or retained Jerry Macneish but I have read his books and know him by reputation and his reputation is that he is one of the worlds foremost experts on Camaro's. He is not to blame in any fashion for another persons criminal acts of fraud. He like the buyer this weekend is a victim of the fraud. If fraud is established.

[Mark_C]

Theres at least 4 parties involved here. No. 1 - the buyer who really is only an interested party and had no part in how this problem came about, No. 2 - the restorer/rebuilder, No. 3 - the guy he bought the shell from with the VIN and tags already attached, and of course No. 4 - "Gary" who sold the tags and paper work in the first place. There may be others between people 3 and 4 as well. The tags were originally going to be sold in April of 2004 (don't actually know if they were or not, but I do know they were removed from the car along with a chunk of the cowl - the pictures verify this), and the (a) shell with those tags reappeared on Ebay in October of 2007, and the "most original ever" Z28 reappeared around June or July of this year at Carlise, and then at this auction. Obviously person number 3 (or maybe someone between him and "Gary") is the one who affixed the tags to the new shell.

The seller/restorer of this car might get off the hook because of that sequence of events, but he's going to be out a ton of money if law enforcement seizes the car.

You don't have to dig up anything to determine if the car has its original shell or not. Every stamped peice of sheetmetal on a camaro contains a plant code and a date code on it. For example the firewall body mount cage has at least 3 stamps on them consisting of a letter and 2 digit number indicating the week of the year it was stamped out. All you need to do is find a few and compare it to the build time of the car. If theres a big difference in dates then the parts of the shell don't belong with the tags.

[camarojoe]

Just a guess, but I'd bet that a BUNCH of the street rods and custom cars that pass through BJ have VINs that aren't original to the actual car rolling across the block if anyone were actually to look into it.

[704EVER]

I hear all your points Les, however there are a lot of "IFs" that I'm sure a lot of people don't want known. A lot of people use other identities when buying on Ebay for one, the paper trail itself may be hard to follow. Are they really going to dig up a land fill or junkyard looking for the original shell? What if the builder was smart enough to remove any other hidden vin from the car in question? Where does that leave NICB? As far as Garys' story goes, I don't doubt it for one second, but proving who took it another step may be very hard. As I stated earlier, I think all the parties involved just want it to go away as fast as possible. Just my .02 on it

[njsteve]

[ QUOTE ]
Put what this car was represented as aside please. What I am talking about here is JUST the car itself. I saw a few posts earlier that someone said the car should be DESTROYED (Les Quam i believe it was). If the vins were never "stolen" and 2 cars were purchased legally and the vin and hidden numbers were switched to SAVE a very rare set of numbers, then I don't see what the difference is between saving a car with 95% of the metal needing to be replaced and one that is completely solid and had a rare set of numbers put on it from a very rusty body to save a piece of GM history.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fast67VelleN20,

The difference plain and simple is that IT IS A FELONY, period, end of story. It doesn't matter what your altruistic reasons are, for example, that you are saving the only one of its kind, or you had a 6 cyl perfect body and the original body was too rusty to save, etc. The law has no loophole for restorations. (-if you want that loophole, call your congressman and lobby for it. Maybe we can then call them "Restoration Bodies" to go along with the "Restoration Engines" already out there)

Your opinion doesn't matter in criminal court.

If you take the VIN from one body and put it on another IT IS A FELONY. If you sell, buy, trade a VIN tag IT IS A FELONY. (I know I am beginning to sound like Jeff Foxworthy here...You might be a felon if...)

The VIN dies with the car. There is no reincarnation with VIN plates. There is no transplantation with VINs. There is no Hindu caste system with VINs that elevates one from a Z/28 to a higher Karmic level than one from a 6 cyl coupe.

O.J. didn't think it was robbery and kidnapping to bring a bunch of thugs with guns into a hotel room and order people around and take their property. But guess what, robbery and kidnapping are still felonies regardless of your personal beliefs.

Here's an analogy.

Jon Smith thinks that money should be free to take from a bank because it's just paper. Jon Smith doesn't have a bank account at the First Savings & Loan. Jon Smith legally owns a gun. Jon Smith walks into the First Savings & Loan with a gun and takes $125,000 from the teller. Since Jon Smith doesn't believe it should be a crime, did a crime actually occur?

Yes, because it's still a felony regardless of what Jon Smith believes.

Cars with swapped VINs are considered contraband under the law and are seized 99% of the time. They cannot be returned to the open market and are either used as law enforcement vehicles or scrapped. There is no replacement VINs issued by the federal government. And it is very rare that a state will issue a new identification number for the car and let it go back out - too many liability issues.

[Mark_C]

"Restoration drive train" is a term Jerry MacNeish uses in his reports for restamped components. Goes hand in hand with JohnZ's "restoration graffiti" as applied to all the chalk marks on firewalls and inspection marks on every component under the hood on over restored cars.

And restoration bodies already exist, they are made by Dynacorn and since they never were a "car" you can transfer your VIN and tags over to them, as they are just a giant repair part, not a car. But thats a subject thats already been beaten to death.

[COPO 70 RS/Z28]

OK Im not an attorney but I am now wondering what happens with one of those Camaro or mustang bodies if you change the whole body do they come with a new vin or ......??????

[njsteve]

Same legal problems if you put another car's VIN on it. The correct and legal way to do it would be to apply for a state identification number (similar to a VIN but issued by the DMV). Most states have specific guidleines for the process which is usually used when people build kit cars or street rods.

By the way I forgot to mention something else on the donor body issue. If you use a "donor body" you are essentially tampering with that car's VIN by removing/destroying it. That is a whole other felony as well.

[JimM]

2 cents?

It's always big fun when a car comes back to life.

I remember one rebody discussion a couple years ago when BOTH cars came back to life! You guys remember that one right? It was a copo or a zl1 or something. We were all seeing double for a while. Pretty sure it started kinda like this one, 'cept in that case, 1 car had the vin and cowl tags, and the other had the hidden vins.

Never heard the end or truth of that one, won't on this one either.

I do really like the attitude of "SAVING" the rare "CAR" tho. (LMFAO!)
When they die, they die.

[SSJunkie68-69]

[/ QUOTE ]

If you take the VIN from one body and put it on another IT IS A FELONY. If you sell, buy, trade a VIN tag IT IS A FELONY. (I know I am beginning to sound like Jeff Foxworthy here...You might be a felon if...)



[/ QUOTE ]

After following this since Saturday on this as well as the other sites.....this had me busting out laughing. Nice post~

Mark C- Your comments are right on as well!

It's pretty clear what happened here as well as a bunch of others that we may never hear about due to lack of exposure. As a group of people - who are ardent hobbyist - we need to make sure we "cut out" this type of thing from continuing. Too many people get burned and it's something that you may never recover from. Call me old school, but to me a Man's word is his bond. If that bond is broken it's very difficult to fix. That's something my Dad taught me long ago and still preaches to this day. As I posted earlier, what happened here happened to some major players and if it can happen to them it can easily happen to any one of us. We need sites like this, Team Camaro and CRG with members who are willing to put their foot down and say enough is enough with this type of !