I recently had a friend contact me saying he noticed how much I was into old cars. His family has some property up in the hills and they have some old trucks that are just going to waste so he wants me to have them. so on my birthday (by coincidence) I went up to pick up the 47 chevy truck....the grill, tailgate, badges and data plates had been removed by scavengers. but they produced an old registration form and a bill of sale for me. they even noterized it for me. so if someone took those data plates and is using them they will have to give them up right? or stop using them anyway? what are your thoughts?
Theoretically, but good luck with that. Might have a hard time fighting it. Whoever is possibly using it might even have it registered in a another state and might not be able to be cross checked. Plus whoever has in now might be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th person down the line and not even know anything about it which might make it a lot harder to straighten out. They likely will just claim they bought the truck fair and square and might be pretty hard to prove against them otherwise. At the very least, you now own a truck with an altered VIN plate that is missing and they own one that they have. I'd start by going down to the DMV and checking to see if it is registered in CA and make a claim if you find it registered to someone else. Might even be able to check it online somehow. Can't hurt to at least try I guess. Might serious put a damper on some guys day though who never knew what might be coming his way. Might be easier to just find another parts truck that still has the VIN and work with it.
well it WAS free.....in the very least it will prove interresting. hate to look at such a complete vehicle as a parts truck. but......let me try to get a pic.
Check the engine number against whatever paperwork you have. Almost all GM cars and trucks from that period were ***led using the engine number as the VIN (on the machined area next to the distributor) so the data plate loss may not be significant.
I'm doing a 42 chevy trk and had the same thing happen. I'm in the state of mo. and went to the highway patrol about it. They told me that the vehicles back then were ***led by engine numbers in mo. and when I got it done they would inspect it and issue a vin at that time
IMO : You have paperwork from original or rightful owners correct? The data plate was stolen and could be on a ******* vehicle , said ******* vehicle could be registered with those numbers that you have ***le to. Can you see where that's going ?
yes and I dont like to remove a cl***ic vehicle from the roadway if it comes to that but I hate a thief.
Oh this is going to be real interesting. Now, you should have engines, frames transmissions etc that will have these numbers on them and you have predating original ***les that show a predated ownership to any ***les that you have. The poor sorry guy who bought those plates and scribbled numbers onto the frames or reattached the plates to another car is going to get a real education. This whole thing is going to be a circus for you, the DMV from where ever will think you are the wrongful one so you are going to have to proof everything and do***ent everything. I think you are going to have to report those tags stolen. There can not be 2 or 3 cars with the same numbers. But there are now. Yeeesh. Yeah theoretically you just bought those other cars as well.
It may be way easier in the end to just claim purchased vehicles with no tags, This might be a real ***** for you if you do go to use those ***les. Even though they are the real deal.
The other side of that is equally nasty isn't it. The one with an illegally obtained ***le to a ******* vehicle is very far accross the line. Who needs to jump thru the hoops, the holder of the legal paper or the holder of the stolen tags and fic***ious ***le?
I had a model A ***le with a California certificate of non-operation that I sold to a guy who had an original A body and frame and the original numbers were already in use. he couldn't register his original car with the numbers in the right place and DMV didn't care.
Yeah, it's all theory until somebody puts a bunch of effort into it to possibly make it a reality. Just to keep it in perspective, another reality is this is just an old 3/4 ton Chevy truck. No real shortage of those out there no matter how you slice it. It is not like we are talking about a '63 vette here. Right or wrong, might be just easier and better all around to just take it for what it is and go source out what you need to fix it up and get another legal parts truck to complete what you are starting with. Honestly, that is not a bad looking start to a project, but still pretty rough regardless. Unfortunately, the prime parts have already been removed of course. But hell, it's not bad and it was free. Go get another one for a few hundred and make yourself a project.
Or, the data plate is hanging on a nail in a dusty garage, long since forgotten, never intended for anything more than decoration.
If I’m reading into it correctly, he is suggesting taking what is rightfully and legally his.....his vehicle, even if it now has a new vehicle wrapped around the data plate. Am I reading that right? Are you really suggesting that it’s nasty to take something legally from a thief that they got illegally? Now of course, if it’s new owners that bought it from the thief, that would ****, but it still wouldn’t be right for them to keep a stolen vehicle ***le that doesn’t belong to them. If it’s illegally ***led onto a different vehicle because someone stole the data plate, unfortunately, it sounds like 48reo owns that truck now. Either way, it ****s and needs to be corrected. Should it not go his way, at least 48reo won’t be actually out any of his money or truck due to having been given the vehicle.
Actually in my experience he who draws first blood wins. If you have paperwork and nothing else that physically proves that the vehicle is for said paperwork and someone else has already registered it with the "data" plate you are pretty much screwed. Especially if there is no police report prior to the time of the other vehicle being regsitered. Perhaps if you could get them into a court of law and had enough believable witnesses? The other thing that you need to realize is that more than likely a vehicle that old was registered by the engine number and no other number on it. That may work to your advantage. if it still has the engine in it check before you unbolt anything. if the numbers on your paperwork match the number on the engine you are golden go down and ***le it right away. Take it to whatever inspections are necessary. Then tear into it.
well whatever happens I will update here. reporting the vin tags stolen may be the way to go. but first i will just try to put it in my name and non-op it.
The one with the most do***entation wins. Altered and fic***ious do***ents don't count at all If its proven to be altered and fic***ious. Depends on the tenacity of the quest.
It looks like there may be a few headaches ahead for some people. "They" could potentially lose the vehicle, or something worse could happen to them, if they used the scavenged VIN. That's why it is against the law, or at least it is in most states. This is another reason I cringe when I see people ask about using a "found" ***le or data plate. Too much to give up in the long run. I hope everything works out for you, though.
I see you live in California. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine is a DMV Investigator. They are actual police officers with powers of arrest that work for the DMV. Contact your local DMV Investigator. They will be able to find if that data plate and vin number are currently in use in California or any other state. If not, they can flag the number so it can't be used until you use it.
Mr. Pork N ******, he has a ***le in his hand from when the tags and the car were one, correct? Just because ones property is left unattended upon ones land does not give another a right to remove tags from it. The removal of a tag is a criminal offense. The reattachment of a tag is a criminal offense. The bad thing here is that the law enforcement community is not really going to do anything for him on the paper work matter. If they do they will test him as if he were a witch to purge all the possible evil out of him. That purging and testing hurts, it hurts the wallet. I'm not sure I wouldn't just bond out the car on a no numbers claim. Any way it gets sliced it's bull poopers.
Thing with a model A is that the number was on the engine, and on the frame... someone with an old A engine might figure the number was dead and use it to ***le a build... Many years ago I bought an A frame and got a ***le for the number on the frame, found a body, built a car and I was good to go... guess no one else found the engine and tried to use the number ha ha.
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