Steel '69 Crate Camaro

[Mark_C]

Since your not swapping a VIN from one Motor vehicle to another its perfectly legal to remove and replace your VIN as needed to make a repair. The body tub qualifies as a repair part, no different than a replacement dash, or quarter panel.

[firstgenaddict]

Legal that may be questionable. Ethical to pass off as original now there is no question about that!
Just my $.02

[Dynacorn]

When you restore a car, you are not VIN tampering. Your vin will state the year, make, model...etc. When your restored vehicle is done nothing has changed. And that, in case you are interested, comes directly from THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. As far as the feds are concerned, and, incidentaly, the DMV in California, a restored car is the same as the original. As long as original parts still exist on the vehicle, you are legal. You obviously can't build a brand new vehicle and slap an original VIN on it. But, if a turn key vehicle is built by a manufacturer, then they have the ability to make a VIN also. I don't understand what the big deal is here.

[Pantera]

If you should change the firewall and or remove the vin plate and put it on a new part you are violating a fed law. You are risking the feds conficistcating your car.

Now if you save the firewall, and expecially the hidden vin # (or as much is still good) and put it on a new body work then you would be much safer with the authorites. It is against a federal law to alter or remove a vin plate for any reason.

I learnd this the hard way with a wrecked '84 vette that I still have in storage. The guy I bought it from had stolen a nice car and removed the vin plate off mine and put it on the nice car that he stole.

I was found to be the legal and righfull owner of the wrecked car and he went to jail. I cannot recover the original vin plate but will have to do a state assigned vin plate if I put the car back on the road. I was planing on building a street car that looked like the IMSA corvettes back about that time but have since lost interest. Car only hss 60k on it.

So before you do something like this you should think hard about who wants to have them impound thier car for trying to do the right thing.

Do we have a fed on here that can give us a legal opinion?
Plese do your homework before you remove a vin plate. The feds just might ruin your day.

Pantera
former bodyshop owner.

[Supergas990]

Wow... You know what they say... "Rationalization is the second strongest human instinct".

As a street rod, great. As a restoration piece, it just doesn't seem to have much upside.

IMHO

Blair

[Canucklehead]

Im actually looking at doing a pro-street build of a 69 Camaro and have been tossing around the idea of using one of these bodys. I have been looking for quite sometime for a donor car and am finding that one in decent enough shape to start from is going to cost me 10k+. Than of course i have to repair whatever i need to keep. I figure it's going to cost me $25-30k just to prep the body. If i start with one of these body's at 12k, i would have to do my body mods from there, but should be running at about 20-25k for a prepped body. That would give me a BRAND NEW body, but not an original camaro. Since im building a complete street rod there won't be much left of an original. Im torn as to weather i should use an original or not. If you want to talk resale, while looking at this years BJ auction, street rods do retain good dollors unlike years ago, but would it make a defference if it was original or not, and if so how much?. Would it be worth it to use an original?, or save it for someone else to restore?. Sure you may say im distroying a perfectly good camaro, or am i keeping it alive. I really can't decide. Theres good and bad points either way.

[Dynacorn]

Check with your DMV.

[Dynacorn]

Mark C is absolutely correct. The replacement components are considered restoration parts. And as such, if you need to remove a VIN to replace a part, you are allowed by law to do so. As to whether someone is trying to pass off a clone as an original, that's not our realm. We deal in restoration and replacement parts only.

[Mark_C]

The only problem with your math is that when you buy an old Camaro in need of work, you are getting a ton of other parts beyond the sheet metal that you will need to build your car that will cost you huge dollars to get later on. Things like wiring harnesses, suspension components, an engine and transmission (usually), interior components etc. Even if the original are not good enough, or don't fit with your plans to be used in your new pro street, or pro touring car, they can be sold to recoupe some of your cost. To replace all the wiring inside a Camaro will run you in excess of $1200 just in the 4 original style harnesses.

When you buy these body components to start your build with that's all you get, no subframe, no suspension, wiring, interior, convertible top mechanism, etc. Add up the cost of obtaining those pieces individually and see where you end up.

People are still comparing transferring a VIN from one vehicle to another (which is illegal) to transferring a VIN from your car to a repair part (like a dash panel). These parts do not meet the definition of a motor vehicle as defined by the DOT so that is not an issue here even if the parts were welded up into a body tub as the original plan seemed to be. One would assume the GM, not the Feds, had something to do with preventing the assembly of the parts into a complete body tub because of licensing.

The 12K price was what was qouted for the assembled tub, wonder what the price is now for the parts, and how much does it cost to get them welded together? Are we still at 12K plus shipping to get it put together?

[Pantera]

Are you sure about the Vin transfer thing? I was informed by a federal law enforcment officer that once a vin plate was removed from a car for any reason you are violiating federal law if you put it back on.

Even on the same car that you put a repair part on. They will make you put a assigned vin number with a OK at the start of it here in Oklahoma. I am not sure what they do in other states. If you remove one and put it back on new parts on your same car don't tell anyone. You might loose your car on the spot if they find out.

I tried to get the original vin for a 84 vette stripper that I legally have. When they recovered the stolen vette that it was ilegally installed on, it was "NO deal" I could not get it done.

Psntera
former owner of
Corvette World Body and Repair
Tulsa OK