titles on ebay

[Pontiac59]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I find it amusing that you would list your cars for sale in your signature after a speech like this! The hemi clone Cuda, that turned into a big lawsuit, I referanced in my clone thread was from N.Y. </div></div>

I'm not doing anything illegal - New York makes it so easy to generate legal, correct paperwork for old cars, I don't have to. I have a 1950 Chevy with plates on it right now that I used the MV51/MV51-B on. The cars I sell are as I find them, if the next buyer wants to play games to rebuild it that's up to him.

The signature is the same on every post I make -

FWIW, I've had a lot of cars with spotwelded stainless tags that have just plain fallen off the car with time. Your 1960-61 Mopars it's common to find one in a junkyard and the tag lays on the ground or on the rocker somewhere. I bought a '60 Chrysler wagon (rare as heck) and it has no tag at all (I suspect someone bought the tag and registration off the farmer that kept the cars, it used to be a lot more of a pain in the butt to register a car if the reg was lost). What are you supposed to do then?

Carbuff72: Don't worry, someone else will buy and enjoy those cars. A gentleman in California is building a 1959 Impala ragtop right now, using a rusty carcass I sold him. It was so bad that I cut the quarters behind the wheelwells and took the deck lid off it and there was nothing else to cut off it - it ended there at the wheels. All a guy has to do to beat that CA law is weld in or stamp in numbers in the right places to match whatever tag he uses - in this guy's case, he's going to have to rebuild a correct convertible frame for the car, he just needs to put the tag from whatever car the donor frame segments come from, on the finished car. I don't even know where they stamp the frame number on a '59, if it's on the front frame he might not even have to do that.

Also, if the guy has an existing CA title and tag and uses that, you'd never know if they played those kind of games with the car. With a state assigned vin, at least you know someone was honest about rebuilding their car.

[Carbuff2]

RE: Pontiac 59

.... and it is YOUR opinion that anyone that will eventually end up with this vehicle is going tbe delighted that he has purchased a chopped up, welded, rust bucket with non-matching numbers at a premium price all the time while the builder of this FRANKENSTEINCHEVCONVERTIBLE enjoys this persons hard earned cash and re-invests a small percentage of that money so he find, collect, weld another "what used to be a vehicle" for the next unsuspecting soul that dreamed of owning a real collectible, INVESTMENT, driveable automobile????? I DON'T THINK THATS OK. You also probably think its ok to cut the top off of a 2-dr hdtp and make a convertible ..... all you need is VIN number that someone like you has removed from a pile of nothing to install on this vehicle, certainly there is nothing ILLEGAL,or just plain wrong with that..... so long as you get yours and the builder gets his, what difference does it make the first time this proud owner takes this car to some that knows about collectible vehicles only to be told that he does not own what he thought he was buying. (BUYER BEWARE) SHOULD BE YOUR SLOGAN. I'm sorry but you state "you'd never know...... " Sometime SOMEONE WILL KNOW and the Dr. Frankenstein will state that he informed this person and is not responsible for ripping off this buyer.

[Restorer32]

Back to the original question...a year or 2 ago a "friend" of mine sold about a half dozen titles on E-bay, including several Model A, a '51 Ford Conv and a couple Ford AA trucks. Just titles, no documentation. Some were NY, some PA, maybe a MD in the mix. He had no complaints or questions from E-Bay at all. Most brought $75-150. He did find out, however, that he couldn't sell old brass fire extinguishers that had originally contained carbon tet.

[joe_padavano]

Re: Carbuff2

First, congrats on finding the CAPS LOCK button on your computer keyboard.

Second, you decry "...a chopped up, welded, rust bucket...", but by your standards that's the only way to properly repair a rusty collector car. I'm still confused. What is your recommended method for repairing such a car?

Third, I have little sympathy for "...the next unsuspecting soul that dreamed of owning a real collectible, INVESTMENT..." These "investors" don't give a rip about collector cars, they're simply trying to flip the sheet metal as fast as possible to make a quick buck. They're the ones running the cost of the hobby out of the realm of those of us who care about the cars. When the collector car market cools again they'll move on to other investment portfolios, just as they did the last time. If they're too stupid to do a proper investigation of their "investment", then it serves them right. I see too many posts here and on other bulletin boards where the message amounts to "I just found this car in a barn. How much can I make if I flip it."

[Carbuff2]

Re: Joe Padavano,

I guess that is another item we disagree upon .... if it wasn't for those collectors that have increased the price of these automobiles it would not be profitable nor cost effective to resurect the rust buckets that you are referring to .... I would bet money that you have sold those vehicles that have been "restored" that should have been left dead and used for parts. If the car is not repairable to be a complete original car with the original documentation then it should be what it is a PARTS CAR (note all caps) Paul

[ted sweet]

SO IT doesnt matter to you if the GTO Vert u just purchased is a Tempest HT body with the GTO drive train and the GTO VIN?

[Carbuff2]

It absolutely does matter and if you read my postings my position has not changed ..... I have 11 vehicles and not one has had a VIN number changed and actually most have the history and documentation as well as the numbers matching engine that has not been modified. I guess I would go wacko if I received one of these when I thought I purchased an original vehicle. We agree, you may have not read my postings. Paul

[Pontiac59]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">RE: Pontiac 59

.... and it is YOUR opinion that anyone that will eventually end up with this vehicle is going tbe delighted that he has purchased a chopped up, welded, rust bucket with non-matching numbers at a premium price all the time while the builder of this FRANKENSTEINCHEVCONVERTIBLE enjoys this persons hard earned cash and re-invests a small percentage of that money so he find, collect, weld another "what used to be a vehicle" for the next unsuspecting soul that dreamed of owning a real collectible, INVESTMENT, driveable automobile????? I DON'T THINK THATS OK. You also probably think its ok to cut the top off of a 2-dr hdtp and make a convertible ..... all you need is VIN number that someone like you has removed from a pile of nothing to install on this vehicle, certainly there is nothing ILLEGAL,or just plain wrong with that..... so long as you get yours and the builder gets his, what difference does it make the first time this proud owner takes this car to some that knows about collectible vehicles only to be told that he does not own what he thought he was buying. (BUYER BEWARE) SHOULD BE YOUR SLOGAN. I'm sorry but you state "you'd never know...... " Sometime SOMEONE WILL KNOW and the Dr. Frankenstein will state that he informed this person and is not responsible for ripping off this buyer. </div></div>

I wouldn't care. Better someone restored something than let it sit and rot or crushed it. But to make a convertible you need to do a lot more than cut the top off and change the cowl tag. Most 1950's cars the serial number has nothing to do with the body style - Cadillac is a lone exception. If you're planning to register from no paperwork, a tag swap is not necessary. But you need to take the donor off the frame and down to the floorpans - X-bracng needs to be swapped into the frame (few people reproduce frame parts for these cars), in some cases you need to reconstruct the frame (X-frame GM cars) to add the proper bracing. Wheel doghouses may need to be swapped. Top support structure needs to be added. Rear seat placement and attachment is altered. Deck lid length may change. The pinchweld or boot area needs to be transplanted to the donor. The upper windshield frame, or entire cowl, may need to be transplanted. By the time you're done combining the two together it's no different than a frame off restoration of the rusty car - something like a '58 DeSoto Firedome convertible (a one of 500 or so car), it's the ONLY way to restore one.

If the work is done right and the car is taken to the last nut and bolt, you won't be able to tell. It's no different than if the same parts had been swapped in the supply line before the car was assembled. A car is made up of thousands of parts. Next you'll be complaining that it's wrong to sell a car as original if the air filter, oil filter, brake shoes, brake hoses, and tires have all been changed out. If I want a particular kind of car bad enough and have money to burn, I could care less if you assembled it from the pieces of 10 cars, as long as it's assembled correctly and safely. But then if I buy a car for me, it's because I want to enjoy the car, not sit and stare at it and hope it's worth twice as much in 5 or 10 years.

Actually, though, if you stopped blathering on and actually looked at what I have for sale, you'd realize quickly that there are no frankenwhatever you called it in my or my friends entire collections. I save from scrap and resell just about exclusively. What a buyer does after they get it, I really don't much care. I just sold a wrecked, rotted, mangled '53 Skylark carcass to a guy who;s going to pony up to ship it to Australia and spend about $100,000 restoring it. It's going to take more than a hardtop donor to repair that one. I sold one '53 Chevy convertible that only had a torque tube holding it in one piece front to back - it's going to be parted out for about 6 west coast guy's cars that all need this or that. They had to buy a whole car to find the parts because no one reproduces them. I certainly didn't cut the top off to "make" that car a convertible, I bought it from where it was parked in 1962 or so. I even saved a '40 Chevy convertible that is in so many pieces it's barely even good to use as a parts source to build another one.

[35cz8]

I bought a 1936 Dodge RS Cp from a wrecking yard and received a dismantle permit - no title. To get the title, I had to have the MVD inspect the car to confirm that the numbers matched those on the dismantle permit. Also, the car had to have a correct "type" engine in it. Upon final inspection, MVD took the permit and give me a new title showing the car as a 1936 Dodge Cp. This title is the same as the original would have been. Had I put a V-8 or slant 6 engine in, the car would have been given a reconstructed vehicle title, and titled as the year I applied for title. I would rather go through the process and have a correct title than to dump a bunch of money into a car that may later be declared as non-original. Just my opinion. BC

[Bhigdog]

It would be nice if the country had a uniform titleing code rather than the crazy quilt arrangement we have now. I can see where a less than honest person by doing a fast paperwork shuffle between several different states could pretty much title whatever he wanted as anything he wanted. Buyer beware I guess....Bob.

[Pontiac59]

Already possible, and done by folks with flood cars and the like so they can resell them.

In Florida, a vehicle that's been declared a total cannot be registered again in Florida. But that Salvage title can be washed by titling the vehicle in some other states, I won't mention which. That's why sometimes you'll see a semi with a bunch of wrecks on it going somewhere, they can repair them and have clean titles. It's not honest, but here again if they do the repairs right, you won't know. It's only when they rush the repairs that you have problems.

[ACowboy]

Wow, this was a lot of reading and hate to add to it, but I do have a question. Model-A's are too well known for having the VIN of the engine as the vehicles VIN number. So, if someone sells a model-a engine to another model-a owner...who gets to keep the vin? AND, if the second Model-A owner (the buyer) did not have the original engine or title...is the seller ALLOWED to just give him the title w/the engine? Most of the title's that I've seen for sale are Model-A's (usually without the car OR engine). Personally, without getting slammed from anyone, I am sure that there is some kind of legality in it if one restored a vehicle that existed before DMV's did and was in need of a title. If any of you have restored a pre-WWII vehicle that did not have a title I am sure you know how difficult it is to obtain a title from ANY state's DMV.

[Guest Albert]

What happens when you pick up a bare block at hershey, or other car market and build a car around it, do you now have a title based upon that block? or if you switch engines, does the car have to have another safety inspection? One problem we have here in Ontario is Salvage titles, cars from out of provance (Quebec) can be branded, but when they come to ontario they get a new ontario title and all previous history is lost including the millage, I have brought back cars from the US, and when i regester them i tell them the millage (what ever i want it to be), so some of the cars from Quebec can have 250,000 km there, and when they get here have 120,000km, because someone has replace the "Defective" odometer. I have seen cars come in for safety where there is an next oil change sticker is 80,000 km higher than the current odometer reading,or maybe they just have som really special oil in it.. Or another time i had a two year old Kia i would'nt touch, the front end had been hit really hard , and pulled back out, but had broken most of the spot welds on one side, the dealer brought it somewhere else and got it safeted.

[jalopy]

There's a company that now reproduces the ENTIRE body and frame for a '57 Chevy, EXCEPT the cowl. Apparently, the cowl is where the VIN plate is located, and once you have that part, with the VIN plate attached, you can reconstruct an entire (reproduction) '57 Chevy around it. Incidentally, I have also seen '57 chevy cowls for sale at Carlisle, with the VIN plate attached (no other parts).

[Pontiac59]

Serial Number tag is on the left windshield post on the '55-'57 (and some older) Chevys. They seem to be glued on, I was in a junkyard a while back and pulled one off with my hand that was about half loose already. Body data tag is on the cowl.

I can have a NY reg on a Model A based on the chassis number same day. If you think your chassis number might be in use, some guys restamp them, there are even a few running around various states with the patent number on the firewall as a serial number. The hot rod guys use the actual serial number because the engines are long gone -

[Bhigdog]

My 39 Chev P.U. came with a valid title (I checked before I bought) but no serial # tags anywhere on the body, just the holes where the plate had been rivited on. I bought a blank repro plate and stamped the serial # from the title on it myself. The DMV was happy and transfered the title and issued plates. I did a frame off on it and never did find a serial # stamped anywhere else.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that there are lots of restored cars out there with less than "clean" original titles.

Personally I have no problem with building a car up from donor parts as long as there is no fraud involved such as selling a clone as authentic.

[ACowboy]

I have to agree w/ Bob. I can't see anyone getting upset about using donor parts and after all, we get judged for having the car as original as possible and let's face it...there aren't many ORIGINAL parts out there anymore. So, what's wrong with using a blank repro plate or a new solid metal fender from Brookville as opposed to bondo-ing the [censored] out of an "ORIGINAL" fender? I think and am hoping that the whole discussion is based merely on the fear of getting duped by buying a clone instead of original. But lets face it...if the car is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous perfect for a "decent" price...I'd be suspect anyway. Unless its an ex-wife selling a car to get back at her "husband ran off with the secretary" rarity...and she better be 80 years with Alzheimers old because I'd still be suspect. If it IS a drop-dead gorgeous perfect rare car...than I probably can't afford it anyway! Besides, somebody in this forum would have beat me to it <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />