What would you have done?

[ChallengerHK]

You see, Doc, I have this friend, and he has this rash ... 

[priderocks]

My original post here may have "tainted the jury pool" by whipping everyone up into a holier-than-thou legal frenzy. Let's try this again. Imagine this scenario, however unlikely. I have a restored 70 Challenger R/T.(True). A thief steals it, parks it on the railroad tracks, and the train erases the back half of the car. With tears in my eyes, I take my baby home, get out the sawzall, and remove the roof, doors, cut the back half off right under the middle of the front seats. Fortunately I have an old donor car in the back yard, so I use my new Miller and stitch the new back half and roof on. I still have an R/T, right?
My wife takes the car to the store, and it's gone when she comes out. By the time the police recover it the thieves have removed the hood, fenders, engine and tranny, k-member, radiator, core support-heck, the even hack off the inner fenders. Undaunted, I haul the remains home and put the front half of my donor car on, and slap some paint on it. Do I still have an R/T? The only thing left of the original car is the firewall, part of the frame rails, and dash.
The thieves ripped up my dash, so I send it in to Just Dashes for one of their usual top-quality redos. But I forgot to take the vin tag off, and they lose it. Now what? If you say at this point I no longer have an R/T because of that vin tag being gone, then I say to you if buy a vin tag, I bought a car. You can't have it both ways. If you disagree with that, then answer this question. I'll use small words and type slowly so everyone can understand. The purpose of my original post was to get an answer to this question: How much of a "car" do you need to buy to legally have a car?

[Moparal]

I dont believe yout rt post

[Alaskan_TA]

How much of a "car" do you need to buy to legally have a car?

Places to ask;

Your local DMV.

Your local LEO, if they have a VIN fraud division even better.

You can ask the NICB through your car insurance broker as well.


Ask all of them, that way you get the LEGAL answer to your question vs. "internet opinions". 

That said.....


If all that crap has happened to you, you should crush the car & be done with it, it is posessed. 

[priderocks]

The R/T is real. The story was fiction.

[wally426ci]

I dont understand the point of elaborate Hypothetical stories........

HK,

lets say... I have this friend, we'll call him Bob, he has this rash that itches..... what type of product would you use... Hypothetically if you had this rash..?

 

[plumcrazy704406]

I would have  hit the delete button.

 

 

[MJS73]

Just Dashes didn't "lose" the VIN tag - they destroy all VIN tags they receive (and no, I don't know this from personal experience).

Mike

[ChallengerHK]

The purpose of my original post was to get an answer to this question: How much of a "car" do you need to buy to legally have a car?

The answer to that is that there's no answer. If you ask a dozen people you'll probably get two dozen responses, and a least six of them will have some sound reasoning to back them up.

[Moparal]

" How much of a "car" do you need to buy to legally have a car?  "

Barry answered that correct.  Places to ask;

("Your local DMV.

Your local LEO, if they have a VIN fraud division even better.

You can ask the NICB through your car insurance broker as well.


Ask all of them, that way you get the LEGAL answer to your question vs. "internet opinions".)



The car you were talking about is junk anyways.  No car is really worth saving when you replace most everything but the id of it.  Throw it away and go find another. That one is worn out.

You can give cpr to a dummy, but it won't wake up.   Or do a salvage title.  Thats when you put junk back on the road isnt it? 

There is lots of pristine junk out there.  Or should I say scammers?   

Personally, I'd want nothing myself that has had most everything replaced.  Bolt on pieces is one thing, but recreating is another. 

So back to Barry's post.    If you want to know forsure, ask the right authority and live by the laws that dictate it.  Don't take matters in your own hands. The road to hell is paved that way

[torredcuda]

Well then I guess I should just junk my car and a lot of others on here should too as mine has had every outer body panel replaced along with the trunk floor,parts of the interior floor,inner fenders and a lot of patches.Unfortunately we can`t all find rust/accident free cars to start with so a lot of rusted or parted out cars are being saved.I think my Barracuda is as structurally solid as when it rolled off the assembly line so I see no problem repairing a car most would have junked and I like the challenge of doing it.

[cudadave72]

I see this post going on forever and heading nowhere!

[heminut]

I see this post going on forever and heading nowhere!

[Street_Challenged73]

I'd say you have purchased a car when any make of a vehicle is actually used in a bill of sale and there is a title that matches it to a "T".  Take my Stealth for example.  The previous owner wrote "I, ______, received $X,XXX for a 1991 Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo V.I.N. ______.  Upon inspection of the car, all the body panel stamps & dash V.I.N. match the V.I.N. expressed on both the bill of sale as well as the V.I.N.  At that point, you can say you own an actual car...Now if I were to receive all the body stamps and the dash V.I.N. along with a title, that wouldn't constitute a car as there are none of the main components of a vehicle that have exchanged hands.   That said, collector car archive services are your friend when determining whether or not a car is truly being shown for what it is and there's CarFax for any newer vehicle to ensure nothing malicious in nature has been conducted to the vehicle at hand.  My take on all this is that you should build a car to suite your wants/needs, regardless of what the V.I.N. shows...My '73 has a date-correct 340 block in it and will be built similar to a Rallye, yet it will retain the correct V.I.N. for the car that shows it as being a standard Challenger equipped with a 318.

Barry is one of the best authorities in the E-body scene, so it's usually best to take his word wisely because he often works with law enforcement agencies for such fraudulent acts involving intentional V.I.N. misinterpretations.  

[Moparal]

Yeah I was thinking that to.  I was also thinking about what torredcuda was saying. And then later was cruising online and saw a 70 383 cuda. It was wrecked in front, fender missing, roof rusted bad, trunk pan gone, floors rotted, no engine or trans, interior parts missing and just wasted since the glass was missing, then I thought
Well that could get a new fender and front nose pieces, well it could have a pan put in it, then another roof.

And I thought to myself.  I am making this car out of nothing for a labor of love in my head. I might as well put a corvette rear clip on it, a pinto front cap, with mercedes interior. I still have the vin.  

So I like the best answer so far as to what Barry said.  Ask the authorities.