Kinda like peddling fraud

[landon1]

i was watching barret-jackson last night and they were talking about this, well kinda...i got kinda mad about it but whatever...they had some COPO cars, but they were beyond repair so they took all the stuff off the copo cars, put it on a regular camaro, nova, etc., swapped the vins and everything. one of the commentators says, "well if i had george washington's axe that cut down the cherry tree, but the handle was beat up and replaced it, is it still GW's axe? yes" still not right to me, but i guess if you're into cars just for the money, it's alright

[billzilla]

Pssh. The Washington's Axe analogy isn't even remotely valid. Tags identify a vehicle's history and rarity. Putting a new handle on an axe would be akin to restoring a really rusty car where most of the sheetmetal gets redone but the block and frame are still mostly the same original 'core'.

Swapped tags are almost always meant to boost the value of an otherwise not so rare car (like putting RR or GTX tags on a Satellite). Unless I'm mistaken, potential buyers of these cars are almost never advised of this swap - whereas a new handle on an historic axe would be an easy thing to spot and likely be disclosed in the event of an auction or other sale.

What if I was selling a house that I claimed was owned by Mark Twain or some other historic figure and it turned out that I just took the door number off the original house and slapped it on some other dwelling that looked the same? Would that be considered even remotely legit? Hell no.

Swapped tags = fraud. I'm blown away at such an analogy as an axe handle.

[rr6pak]

I see what you're saying, Billzilla. What AlaskanT/A has on his site though is a felony IF you get caught. I, for one, wouldn't want to get caught at it. I think there has been some cases where people have done this, swithcing tag numbers, selling them, and or buying them to decieve a potential buyer.

[landon1]

the axe thing is exactly what i thought...ridiculous...if you have the build sheet for the car, or you have an unrestored car to start with so you know what it had and it's matching numbers, who cares if you have the fender tags

if you're cloning a car from a satellite to a runner or an x, just call it a clone - a lot of the time, it will fetch more money than a satellite, and sometimes as much as a real one

[Smellslike1974]

Its a confusiing situation because if it was illegal to sell just the vin tags,people could just start putting them on different cars and selling the cars,when actually both parties know that the vin doesn't belong to it and the car is just an extra.(it would have to be a piece in order to me cheap enough.)

[72 RR fan]

I wonder how many cases there may have been of people trying to register two different cars with the same VIN#. If one person has the data plate and no dash vin, or false dash vin, and another person has the original dash vin without the data plate....It could happen.

[fourforty6pac]

There are hidden numbers on all cars that can help in identifying them in cases of fraud. Some are not so hidden and others are hidden pretty good. A friend of mine bought a cuda that turned out to be a barracuda. The guy he bought it from was ordered to buy the car back after the state police took the vin and fender tags. The guy didn't have the cash to buy it back so my buddy kept it. It turned out to be an expensive parts car. After we stripped it he sold the body to a guy that is now drag racing it.
If you are buying a high dollar collector car you better make sure you know what to look for. There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there that are just waiting in line to take someones hard earned cash.