So how far is too far??

[njsteve]

Though it is not what you want to hear, there is a point at which you simply have to take the car off of life support and let it die an honorable death. If you take the VIN off of one body and put it on another, it is a felony. Period. If the Lawman gets tipped off to the car, you will absultely lose the car; it will be confiscated as "contraband property" under the law and you will lose all of your money and your car, and most likely get a felony conviction to boot.

If the hypothetical ZL1 with the crushed roof and floors is to be resurrected you would have to find the floors and roof from a donor car and weld it to the original ZL1, no matter how hard it is or how much $$$$ it costs. The same goes for the race car.

Without being any less cryptic in my message, I will say this about the extent of my knowledge in this area: I get paid to hunt down VIN swapped cars and the people who create them. Nuff Said?

[Unreal]

Some say you cannot mess with the cowl, but everything else is fair game. But hen, sometimes the cowl or upper dash panel need replaced, but the rest of the car is OK. Then, it's OK to change them. That sounds like the whole car, to me.

Reminds me of an old fraternity house at Pitt. There was a local ordanance that grandfathered multi-family dwellings, but if replaced, it had to be a single family residence. (an attempt by the neighborhood to get rid of the fraternity houses on Bayard Street)
Anyway, they were allowed to "remodel" so they "remodeled" the inside, by building a new house just inside the old carcass. When that was done, they "remodeled" the outside, by knocking down the old carcass, exposing the new house inside.
I might have it backwards, they might have "remodled" the outside first. But in any case, while it met the requirements of the ordanance, it was clearly a "rebody"

[RichSchmidt]

I would have to say that a fair percentage of the nice camaros in my area are tag jobs.Not the kind that make them Yenkos,or Motions,but just the opposite.Most of the original supercars were struck by Jewish lightening back in the 70's and vanished off the face of the earth.The owners would take the insurance check and use it to make the cars into race cars.In New York,it seems that many race cars were floating around with VIN tags and no titles over the past 20 years,and as these cars are being converted back to pro street and even restored cars,the owners are scared to do a title search because they know how many of the 70's era race cars were actually built with fraudlous insurance money.Cars would change hands many times without a title since you dont need one for a drag car,and then after years and years the cars end up being fitted with tags from the nearest rustbucket 6 banger that turns up in the auto shopper.In reality,more of the supercars that went MIA were actually never destroyed in the traditional sense,but rather their owners would call them in stolen to get the insurance check to finance the conversion of the car into a drag car.Sometimes the cars were stripped of a few parts and left under a bridge,and would later be legitimatly sold through insurance auctions to racers who would build them into drag cars and retain the salvage title.Sometimes the racers would take the cars directly off the hands of a hard up youngster who couldnt afford the payments anymore.Either way the vast majority of supercars were killed in this fashion rather then by collisions or rusty deaths.I know of littleraly dozens of titleless muscle cars in my area that nobody would ever do a search on since these cars often have a very shady history.I have heard of 67's being made into 68's to fit the new title they were being fitted with,as well as at least one hardtop that is sporting a title and tag from a convertable.These guys dont care as long as the DMV will give them plates for it so they can drive it on the street.So in reality,a large number of supercars were tampered with years ago,and this isnt a problem that has surfaced recently.
Another issue is how some municipalities handle impounded cars and such.I had a perfectly good 68 camaro pass thru may hands that was tagged.It turns out that the car was impounded for overdue parking fines in New Yorks city back in the 80;s,and since it was over 10 years old it was sold as a bulk bid for scrap to a local junkyard,and was declared junk and un titleable by the state.Too bad the car was an absolutley spotless and original car with every rust free panel painted in custom pearl paint,as well as with a 468 bigblock under the hood and dana 60 rear in it,and was a turnkey and certified 9 second show car.The city wanted it crushed because it was an abandoned car that was over 10 years old.The Junk man sold it to a local racer who tagged it with the numbers from a rusty 6 cylinder just so he would have a title,then sold it for $20,000.He simply admitted that it was a 6 cylinder that was converted into a drag car.Well as it turns out the rightful owner was in jail for a while and his storage garage pushed the car out onto the street without plates on it for lack of payment,and that is how it ended up in the pound.Old cars and tag jobs tend to go hand and hand,especially in an inner city enviornment.Cops dont look at tags on stuff over 10 years old around here,so there is a wide open market for bogus cars.But that is a whole different issue anyway.

If you think what I am saying is bad,wait another 20 years.I think as it stands right now just about 3/4 of all the 5.0 mustangs ever titled in the New York City area have been declared stolen.Now to you look at it you would never guess we had such a shortage of 5.0 mustangs around here,but the DMV records show a much higher concentration of 4 cylinder LX's around/As it turns out there also seem to be a lot more really shiny black and whistling 81 buick regals around then there are Grand Nationals.You would also be amazed at th quality of workmanship that has gone into converting a plain jane 82 firebird into a dead ringer for an 89 GTA,right down to the leather seats and the 350tpi driveline.You really cant tell the differance

[WILMASBOYL78]

I object to the term "jewish lightning" in your post. While I am completely familiar with the term and it's meaning, there are other ways to say the same thing. In my opinion there isn't any room for religious or ethnic references on this site. Using that phrase is really going too far!!

Tom Williams

[427TJ]

Well said Tom.

Who among us wouldn't want to practically 'steal' a car from some unsuspecting seller and then turn it for a hefty profit? It's really human nature and it's not limited to any one group of people.

Again: "I want to pay the lowest price when I buy and get the highest price when I sell."

Okay, back to the time-honored tradition of criticizing guys for either "asking too much for their cars" or "paying too much for their cars"!

[Salvatore]

I don't know Rich, but I am sure he didn't mean anything personal. I am Italian and always hear greaseball and underworld talk. Just is life

[RichSchmidt]

I'm sorry if I ofended you.I am half Polish,and have been going along with the jokes for over 30 years now.I figured that since the term was a era correct slang for what happened to these cars that it would be humorous.Oh well.

[WILMASBOYL78]

Thank you for your response. Tom.