mike coletta

Here's a good one. A customer of mine recently purchased a 64 coupe project, to build a restomod. The car came from VA. He picked it up and brought it to my shop, and proceded to start getting the paperwork in order to transfer title to his name. We are in FL. He finds out that there is a 51 Merc registered in Florida with that identical VIN. A search discovers that the car is now in IN, but with an open FL title.

Here's the riff.....The title was issued in FL in 2008 based on the ENGINE NUMBER. Guess what??? The engine from the project vette is in the Merc!!!! We have now sent pictures of the VIN tag, and pictures of the frame stamps to FL DMV. I guess that the only reason that it was discovered is that both cars were registered/titled in the state at the same time. Too wierd!!!! The DMV wanted to issue a new number for the Vette, and of course the owner said NO WAY.

I guess the moral of the story is....You never know where that "original motor" will show up!!! It might still be "OUT THERE SOMEWHERE".!!!!

Mike Coletta

Kerrmudgeon

Wow, talk about a fluke, wonder if the Merc guy will part with the motor?

Blk63Vette

Hi
I think the car wars (candy apple paint, fender flares, insane engine modifications, and the always the fun "power shift"way into the red and grenade the engine..) from the 60s and 70's...Put alot of cars to and early grave. My car has some battle scars from the 60 and 70s...(tabs welded on the frame for hooker side pipes, repaired rear quarter cut outs for bigger tires, etc)...that engine grenaded a long time ago.. Someone (previous owner) who made a tab with correct numbers and jb welded to the engine nows its "matching numbers"

Hey the 60's and 70's were HARD on these USED cars..That were not worth anything in the 70's oil crisis..

Stingray1967

Neat story. Mine is relatively boring compared to that.

VetteRed1965

A great story.If you offer an engine swap,maybe you get it back.

63Corvette

I just moved to Texas, and when registering my car, found out that (according to the Washington title) I have just registered the first 2040 Corvette ever registered in Texas

Dan Hampton

The fact remains that, given a lot of variables, these original motors just wore out, were grenaded, and thrown in the dumpster for a larger cid. I had a '58 which I purchased in high school in 1966. The motor had already been "rebuilt". Instead of doing it the way one should they simply knurlized the pistons as they didn't want to deal with the taper which was probably in excess of .012. The car always burned oil. I finally found a Chev warranty motor (283) that was brand new but had a bad piston. Rebuilt it with better heads and a L 79 cam. I remember checking the code back then and it was an original 245 hp/pg, having been converted to a stick in the late 50s. Given the taper of the original motor, I tossed it outside behind the shop. It may still be there.

scotty t

i've got a 1964 365hp in my 60. it came from a red convertible from the covington ky area. it was removed in the late 60's maybe early 70's. any one think it might go to their car? pm me.
scott

narlee

I got lucky, mine's in the garage. As already stated, it didn't matter back then. The only #'s you cared about on the engine were the "HP".

sbpogge

Dan you otta see if that 283 motor is still their behind your shop.

c2vette64

Still in my car. The original water pump, fuel pump, carb, and alternator are on the shelf. Unfortunately all the shields are long gone though.

cbernhardt

Hey Mike:

If it is going to be a restomod what was his objection to having a new number?

Charles

Frankie the Fink

Great story Mike ... you should read rich5962's thread about reselling his '56 back to its previous owner by coincidence recently. I don't understand FLA registering the '51 Merc by its engine serial number....there were no other proper identifiers on that year/model car ? Seems odd.

Donny Brass

on a stand in my garage

Jerry Bowen

Tom w/ Classic Engine in Osh Kosh claims to have re-built somewhere around 1500 C2 corvette engines to Bloomington/NCRS specs (w/ modern internals) starting with original corvette blocks, heads, cranks, cams, oil pans, timing cover, etc. He matches corvette specific code/date stamps to the the buyers car, and he charges a lot, so there must be a good market for genuine usable parts with correct casting numbers and dates.

I happen to know this because I will be firing up my re-built '65 L76 365 hp engine for the first time later today. It's not original, but it's very similar to the original engine, and should be easier to maintain and fun to drive. Also, rebuilt the original 4-spd for the first time and installed a new clutch/flywheel.

jon68l79

I searched for it after buying the car. But here's more to the story that makes this even more weird.

When I bought the car 3 years ago, I had the same problem when I went to title it in Virginia. DMV told me that my VIN was on a '51 Mercury titled to the same owner that I bought the Vette from. He was a quirky guy that had over 30 collector cars at the time. Because it was the same owner titling both vehicles on the same day, they assumed that they had screwed up entering the cars in their system, and issued me a clean title with the VIN matching the Vette.

Now why would someone trying to sell a Vette take the numbers matching engine out and put it in a Mercury? He probably lost $5-10k in the value of the Vette by doing so. He also told me that he didn't have the original engine, but owned both cars at the same time. Go figure.

This is one of those "right in front of your nose" stories.

I'm gonna go cry in my (empty) garage now.

BADBIRDCAGE

Did I ever wonder WHERE the original motor went?

Answer: NOPE

Rich

JohnZ

My '69 Z/28 (purchased ten years ago from the original owner) has a "CE" block; the original DZ engine blew up in May, 1970, and was replaced with the "CE" block under the 5/50 warranty, including one cylinder head (everything else is original); it went out in a "blaze of glory".

Black_Magic

Just check and still on stand in garage

TheSaint

Maybe thats the one that was in my 64?

Now i see that you wrote convertible...