Rebodied cars and do they get certified

[Supercar_Kid]

[ QUOTE ]
You mention these supercars as if they were people,but they are not.Unlike people,cars can exist as any sort of conglomeration of parts,and here are some scenarios.

[/ QUOTE ] I like the analogy because like people, each and every VIN# should be considered a one of a kind original, never to be duplicated and never to be reassigned. The idea of swapping #s also doesn't translate well to people, and it sort of highlights the obsurdity in how we look at the practice when it concerns valuable cars.

As a hypothetical, if I start calling myself Elvis Presley and start using his Social Security # does that mean I'm a "restored" Elvis Presley? Hardly...

Another good hypothetical would be if a soldier is killed in action and you took his dog tags off and put them around another member of his platoon's neck, does the dead soldier's mother now have her son back? Nope...the tags simply identify the soldier...switching them to any other soldier no matter how many ways he closely he resembles the original doesn't make him THE original, even if it's to his twin brother born only 1 minute later.

So lets get back to thinking of this in terms of Supercars, and remember why most folks didn't give a squat about #'s or tags on their cars back in the day.

The hidden VINs and body tags do not make the car, they simply identify the car to which they are attached, same as a Social Security # or a Military ID tag does for a person.

Saving the tags is not saving the car, it's merely giving the ruse that the car that was once identifed by those tags has been saved, when in fact it's another car posing as that original car.

If you remove a body tag and scrap what it was attached to...that car and the tag it represents is forever "dead' IMO.