Question On rebody? 1973 Z-28

[MultiMopars]

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Don't the home-made street rods usually get some type of state-issued VIN plate for registration purposes?

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Some do some don't. It usually depends on wheather or not there is a legal valid title for the car that was modified.

Lets use as an example a 32 Ford streetrod. Regarless of the updated engine, suspension, wheels, instruments, A/C, or any other upgrades to the car the owner made, it is STILL a 32 Ford. If legal title hasn't been lost over the last 77 years then it is still used to title and license the car. If it has been lost then the guy has to deal with the State he is trying to register it in. Typically the State DMV inspector is going to try and determine what the car started life as, try to find and original V.I.N. for the car, check to see if it was ever reported stolen, look for V.I.N.s of any parts attached, check to see if they are reported stolen, etc. THEN, regardless of weather it has a FACTORY V.I.N. plate or not they MAY create a State issued V.I.N. plate and attach it and create a control number with a file of their actions that will follow the car for the rest of it's life. In this example of a lost title, it is the discretion of the inspector regarding a State issued V.I.N. tag. However, MOST people are aware that titles for older cars are easy to get and do so BEFORE the show up at a DMV office and don't have to deal with this. The thing that you ALWAYS want to do when you are considering buying a car without a title is to call law enforcement with the V.I.N. and tell them you are considering buying the car and ask them to check and see if it has ever been reported stolen BEFORE you buy it.

Back to the street rod senario. A street rod is typically NOT considered "home made." As stated above, they begin life and are still considered by the law and DMV as what the were born regardless of the modification made to them.

V.I.N. plates for "home made" licensible items are things such as trailers. Some home built motorized vehicles such as kit cars, motorcycles, and cars built from scratch can also fall into this catagory, but it has become much harder to comply to federal and state laws to make this cost effective for most people.

[Xplantdad]

On the other hand...then there is this...

http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/...feature16.html

[SuperNovaSS]

Steve, This has been gone over so many times on this site. You should just save the time and start copy and pasting your old responses.


Jason

[gb70]

Good article Bruce.

Remember that Camaro the was waisted that sold on Ebay recently. One question to the seller was would he sell the Vin and cowl plate. People should really think about the consequences of law first before selfish greed. The Hemmings article you shared made me realize that auction. Hope the new buyer does not try to resell it on another body.

[Fast67VelleN2O]

In my personal opinion, I don't care if a car has been rebodied or not. The only people who do care, are the people trying to preserve the value of their non rebodied valuable muscle cars. They are the only ones who speak out against this practice. I usually just ignore them. If you were talking about reboding a rusty 6 cylinder base car to another 6 cylinder base car body, no one would care. Every single body on the assembly line started off the same, they just received different options and numbers. There is NO difference between a rebody and someone who replaces fenders, doors, quarters, trunk and floor pans, body braces, rockers, and a roof skin on a rusty car. Techinally, every single car out there, when on the assembly line, started off as a BASE zero option car. Further down the assembly line, every car was given their unique traits. All that a rebody is doing, is replacing one cars unique traits to another. As long as you disclose that the car is a rebody, who cares.

-Matt

[MultiMopars]

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On the other hand...then there is this...

http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/...feature16.html

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I am aware of this and this is EXACTLY what the law was written to guard against. This was a blantant attempt at fraud. The seller created a DIFFERENT V.I.N. tag, changing it from what it originally was by changing the engine identification character.

This is COMPLETELY different from what I am posting about here which is the EXCEPTION to the V.I.N. tampering law that allows for repair, replacement, and restoration regarding the moving of a V.I.N. tag.

Understand also that as I stated in my original post on this subject, that State laws vary. In some states the Federal law may not apply.

[MultiMopars]

SuperNovaSS

That is what I do in many cases as there are other arguments that are ongoing in our hobby that people have VASTLY different opinions on.
Values of original engines, date coded engines, and restamping of engines is onE example. I, as other have a lot to say about these things.




Fast67VelleN2O

I agree completely!




Let me throw some more gas on the fire. You guys can read this and continue to argue both sides of this arguement until the end of time. bare in mind this was written in the Mopar community which are unibodies so some of it will sound funny to guys that deal in frame and body cars.

This subject typically comes up about once a week SOMEWHERE in the hobby.

I will do my best to present all I know to be the OPINIONS and FACTS of BOTH sides of this controvery, so that in the future anyone interested in the subject can save this and argue with themselves over this.

Here we go.

FOR THE PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE REBODYING IS WRONG

Many people in the hobby feel that there is a big difference in the way people "restore" a car, ESPECIALLY a unibody.

They believe that the unibody is the core or soul of the car.

They believe that when the car was created by the manufacturer, that the numbers that were assigned to that particular unibody, and the assortment of parts that were assigned to and installed on it to create the model they were disignating are sacred. That no one else outside of the manufacturer has the right to do a V.I.N. switch (which did happen when these cars were new before they ever left the final assembly line) on any of these cars for any reason.

They believe that IF the car is what they consider to be salvagable by repairing existing body parts or installing new, reproduction, or good used parts, that is the only legal/ethical way to restore the car and maintain the heritage/originality of the car that the original manufacturer built.

They feel that when a car is rusted/damaged to the point that there is little left of the original unibody that the car should be scrapped and taken out of existence.

They believe this is not just a matter of legalities but also a matter of ethics.

They believe that even if it IS legal on a Federal level and in many States, that it is still unethical and morally wrong.

They feel that restoration by rebody is NOT a restoration at all but rather a fraud created on the hobby and any line of ownership after the rebody takes place.

They feel that even when disclosure is made by the party that did the rebody, to the next person that purchases the car, that it is still unacceptable. They feel that it is all to likely that somewhere down the line in years to come with the ownership changes of the car that this will NOT be disclosed to future buyers.

Many are adamant about their belief that switching V.I.N. tags to another similar car/unibody and associated hidden I.D. numbers is just plain wrong, legal or not. Regardless of how CORRECT the car may appear, with all of the correct componants that the factory would have installed on a like unibody, it is not the same as when the factory did it, and that THEY (the original manufacturer) are the only ones that had the right to do so.

They consider all rebodies to be nothing more than a clone with the identity numbers from another car.

They believe that a registry of any KNOWN rebodies and any SUSPECTED rebodied should be kept for any future buyers to be aware of to aid in their buying decision.

Before we go to the other side of the arguement, the below information needs to be considered.



THE CATCH 22

Most feel the real problem is that there is no definition of where the line is with regards to the restoration of a unibody car.

At what point does the car cross the line from what has been described above as a restoration rather than a rebody?

How much of the original unibody has to be left for new, reproduction, or good used parts to be attached to?

How big of a CHUNK of a donor car can you use in this restoration before it is considered a rebody?

Does the simple act of removing the V.I.N. plate from one car or part of the car constitute a rebody?

What about removing the V.I.N. plate because the part of the car that it is attached to is damaged? Does this constitute a rebody?

Does a car that was front or rear "clipped" by a bodyshop 30+ years ago constitute a partial rebody?

If a car was first FRONT clipped and a year later REAR clipped, does this constitute a complete rebody?

All good questions with no answers that probably any two people will agree on.

This is why so many people have mixed feeling about the restoration/rebody arguement.



FOR THE PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE THAT A REBODY IS AN ACCEPTABLE FORM OF RESTORATION

These people do not believe the car or unibody has a soul, or that the car is sacred. They do not hold the manufacturer in a Godly manner and assume that none of the factory line workers were any kind of Saints.

They believe that the base unibody is the same for a given car line (e.g. "A", "B", "C", or "E" body) and it is just an assembly of parts added to this base unibody that creates the particular price class. These are terms that Chrysler created for their cars.

These people believe that IF the manufacturer had the right to switch V.I.N.s of a car that they built, that an individual has the same right, provided that they legally own both cars involved in the rebody.

The manufacturer did this in the interest of "saving" a car, rather than scrapping it, for purely financial reasons. If they mistakenly built a car that somehow did not meet the criteria of what the V.I.N. model designation indicated, they took the path of least cost to convert it to a different model and made a V.I.N. plate switch that reflected that. Did you ever wonder why the HIDDEN V.I.N. numbers don't have the FULL V.I.N. stamped in them? It left flexability for the manufacturer to make V.I.N./model changes when the car was near completion.

The people that believe in rebodying, do so for the same reason, because it is financially less costly.

These people also sometimes do so in the interest of safety when they have a car that they want to save that may have serious body deformation or serious rust problems in the unibody.

These people believe that they are also saving the heritage of the car by doing so.

These people feel that it is better to have a donor car that is as the factory built, and without damage, to transplant the parts that were factory installed specific parts that made up the identity of the car they want to save.

They believe that it is legal on a Federal level and cite the Federal Law from the Cornell University Law Library in the link below as their proof.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/h...1_18_10_I.html


These people argue that in a State that considers rebodying a car is illegal, don't think that State law would hold up against an appeal to a higher court.

OPINION: They believe it would be pretty obvious that if a State court ruled it illegal when the person that did it OWNED both cars legally, the defending party would arguing "intent," indicating that if the State law was upheld in this case, that it would be appealed to a Federal court. With this information in front of a judge (who is certainly smart enough to understand the "intent" of the law was to thwart chop shops) would rule in favor of the person who did the rebody. It would certainly be overturned in a Federal court. Not to mention, it would have to PROVEN that the rebody was DONE in the a State that it was against State law, and have an eye witness that actually saw the numbers switch take place in order to "prove" that the seller actually did it. It probably would not even get to trial and would be thrown out at the initial hearing. Court systems are overloaded throughout the US with trials that are far more important that someone doing a restoration (rebody) of a car that involves a donor car that the parts could have been switched in either direction. The whole thing is way too subjective with regards to where the line is, as indicated in the CATCH 22 section above.

They believe what you are talking about here would be a criminal suite, not a civil action. Anybody can sue someone and get a trail for a civil suite, but it is a whole other story when you are talking a criminal action.

These people believe that the people on the other side of this controversial subject, do their best to impact the value of a rebodied car in a derrogatory manner. This leads to it NOT being disclosed in most cases and will continue to be the case until such time that these cars are not looked down upon by some, but not all, in the hobby.



MY PERSONAL OPINION

In closing, rebodying has been going on in the entire hobby not just the Mopar world since the 1930s. It is not going away, especially with prices on the continual rise for the cars it is being done with. If people want to really DO something about it, they should be trying to formulate a definition that will be accepted THROUGHOUT the hobby, of at what point a restoration becomes a rebody as indicated in the above catch 22 section of this post. This will give these two sides an entirely different thing to argue about rather than the legal/ethical issues that have been never ending.

[MultiMopars]

BTW, I own a 1978 Dodge little Red Express Truck. They never made one from the factory in 4X4. I wanted one, so I made one. The only acceptable way to do it was to buy a 4X4 donor truck that ended up being a 1977 shortbed for the chassis and 4X4 componants. I had the body, engine, trans from the 1978 truck mounted on the 1977 chassis along with the 1977 front differential, trans tail shaft, and rear end. The V.I.N. for the truck is mounted on the door and of course there was no title or V.I.N. alterations.

Do I have a rebody? Of course in the truest sence as the body was completely switched to another chassis. I still have the original 2X4 chassis by the way. Hows this for total disclosure? Anybody that knows anything about these trucks knows they never built one like this so it is no big secret in the first place.

So call the police, I could care less and they won't either as I legally own BOTH vehicles.

Here is a photo album link of the truck for anyone interested.

http://s283.photobucket.com/albums/k...press%20Truck/

[MosportGreen66]

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On the other hand...then there is this...

http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/...feature16.html

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Well done Bruce! I was waiting for it.

-Dan

[njsteve]

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Im response to all of this:

1. If you look at the areas of my post on page one that are bolded it clearly shows an allowance for removal and MOVING a V.I.N.


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You seem to be basing your opinion completely on the above statement.

You are incorrectly interpreting the statute. No where in the Federal Statutes that you cite does it say that MOVING the VIN to another body is a legally permissible exception. I have yet to find a State statute that specifically permits it either. Have you?

The Federal statututory exception addresses removing the VIN during a repair, to affect that repair and then refers to replacing it on THE SAME vehicle during that repair process. It never mentions MOVING it somewhere else.

You have some very intelligently stated opinions, but as even you said, that is all they are, opinions.

As a restorer, I would rather err on the side of not facing the possibility of civil lawsuits or criminal penalties than err on the side of looking over my shoulder for the cops (less likely) or some disgruntled purchaser with a flock of lawyers for the next 10 years (far more likely).

If you really want to have a rebody exception to the Federal stautes, someone has to put that into a bill form and run it through their senator or congressman. I hereby nominate you to do that. That would settle the argument once and for all and I could finally put down my keyboard and mouse forever.