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1937 Packard 120 VIN location


pint4

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I have a 1937 Packard 120 and am in the process of swapping the engine with another out of donor 1937 Packard 120. Is this going to cause me problems with my title? Thee is a number on the engine that I believe is the VIN number. That goes away when I swap engines. Is the VIN number located anywhere else on the car, frame, body, etc.? Someone told me it was only on the engine block?

Thanks!!

Email address: pint4@new.rr.com

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A VIN or vehicle identification number refers to the federally mandated format of numbering that came into being decades after Packard was gone from the scene. The Packard vehicle number (VN, not VIN) is stamped on a brass plate on the engine side of the cowl, directly beneath where the plate says "Vehicle Number". The engine number is NOT the vehicle number though some states did title with the engine number and not the actual vehicle number. If the brass plate is missing there is no way to way to recover the correct original VN unless you happen to have it from some old documentation as it does not appear anywhere else on the vehicle.

Edited by Owen_Dyneto (see edit history)
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A VIN or vehicle identification number refers to the federally mandated format of numbering that came into being decades after Packard was gone from the scene. The Packard vehicle number (VN, not VIN) is stamped on a brass plate on the engine side of the cowl, directly beneath where the plate says "Vehicle Number". The engine number is NOT the vehicle number though some states did title with the engine number and not the actual vehicle number. If the brass plate is missing there is no way to way to recover the correct original VN unless you happen to have it from some old documentation as it does not appear anywhere else on the vehicle.

Interesting that the VN does not appear anywhere else on the vehicle. I've found several parts of my '35 1207 Coupe-Roadster that have the VN hand-written on them. For example, if I take off the door upholstery, the VH is handwritten on the wood underneath, in what looks like chalk. I also saw VNs hand-written when I took apart the pieces of my dash to send them off for woodgraining. I've always assumed that these VNs were from factory assembly, which I understand to have been by Dietrich on Packard's behalf. But perhaps the numbers are just something someone scrawled on later, such as when the car was repainted and reupholstered in the 1970s.

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Guest bkazmer

Is your car currently titled on the engine number or the VN number? Both are legal. If the latter, no issue. If the former , call the DMN about how to document

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