Well, odds are when he walked up with the title in hand, they didnt look at the car. You could go to the local DMV here while only owning the VIN tag and get it titled if you wanted. I had 2 - 78 DODGE trucks for a while, one was totalled, so i put the other on the road. When i went to sell it, the VIN didnt match the title, I had been driving that truck for 2 years and the numbers on the registration were to the truck that got scrapped....
woops. Luckily, i went home and found the right title.