RatDog

Cool story. You know this guy is happy but it would take a lot to get the car back to the way it was when he owned it.

http://www.njherald.com/20170529/cor...to-hampton-man

Steve

3JsVette

Wow! While he did get his Corvette back he certainly did not get back the same car. It would be interesting to see what he decides to do. Keep it. Sell it. Maybe restore it which would cost a fortune.

Geralds57

Amazing he got the car back and even more amazing how many corvettes have been stolen in NJ. Makes you wonder how many others are floating around with fake tags.

Bowtyeguy

I was at a show yesterday where a woman had on display her Harley Trike that was her Dads that was stolen in 1978 with no insurance.
Long story, 2015 she got a call from NC Dept of Trans and said they had the bike.
First they asked if she still had title and to verify the Vin.
Second they asked if insurance had paid bike off. They didnt have insurance.
She got back a restored bike after all those years.

The guy that had bought it was from a state that didnt need titles after X amount of years. They just give you a bill of sale and you register it.

NC traced the numbers and it came up hot.

This rant is just to tell people DO NOT BUY A CAR WITHOUT A TITLE.

Some states dont issue them and in this case someone lost a ton of cash.

Only way I would do it is go to the DMV with the seller no matter what state they were in and have a clear sale where VIN was traced.

wmf62

good idea...

Bill

Black 03 Z06

Nice story. Wonder who took the biggest loss on this deal?

midyear

correction..lots of states don't have titles on vehicles this old (currently about 1/2 of the 50 even to include states like new york), I live in one of them, and...unless it does not have current registration, requires law enforcement to run the vin to ensure its not stolen.

and I can assure you, if you took a non titled registration from Georgia, and took it to a title state...guess what? yup they issue you a title.

Rant...I hate it when people make generalizations about regulations because they only know there own laws.

Bowtyeguy

They will issue you a title but if the Vin is run and it comes back dirty you lost the car.

If it comes back clean you keep the car.

I can assure you that you cant take a Bill of sale from Georgia to PA and get a title.

It has to be inspected and traced first.

I would not send money to buy a car with just bill of sale.

Registrations cards are different, Bill of sales are not

NY offers a registration card that is legal, you can transfer it on the back.

emccomas

You cannot get a title for a car older than 35 years in Alabama, period!

Any car older than 35 years (yes, it moves every year) only has the registration as your proof of ownership.

The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System does record these "registration only" transactions, but only since 2010.

Most other states seem to require the following when an old car from Alabama is sold to that state:

1. Current Alabama registration in the name of the seller
2. Notarized bill of sale by the registered owner

I have assisted in selling old cars to NY, NJ, FL, CT, IA, IO, CA, TN, MS, GA, SC, NC, PA, and OH in the past five years. This has been the process for every state that has titles or registrations.

One suggestions I would make is that, if you have an old car sitting in the garage, get it registered in your name so it gets listed in NMVTIS. That will provide proof of ownership, and avoid an incident like what happened to 1953 Corvette #029.

SupremeDeluxe

Exactly how I did it. Purchased a 1969 Cadillac convertible, a lifelong Georgia and Alabama car. Took notarized BOS to the Illinois DMV, lady checked it against a list she had of "non-title" states, and issued me an Illinois title with no further questions. Inspection was not necessary.

RatDog

My '67 came from Georgia (I'm in Florida) with a BOS from the Dealer where I bought the car and a South Carolina title signed over to the Dealer and then signed over to me as the new owner. No plates or registration.

I carried the title, BOS, and my proof of insurance down to the DMV. They told me the car has to be inspected and the VIN checked before I can register the car. They told me they would send a police officer to my house to look at the car and they gave me a form for him to complete. So the officer came, phoned in the VIN to see if there was a stolen vehicle report on it (longest 5 minutes of my life), and all was good.

That VIN inspection process sounds like a good way to catch a stolen car except for the fact that the officer who looked at my car didn't know what he was looking at. He had a puzzled expression when he looked for the VIN at the bottom of the windshield on the driver side and didn't find anything. I told him where the VIN was located and he was able to verify the VIN on the car was the same as the title. But I could have made the VIN plate in my garage, screwed it in place with Phillips head screws, and he wouldn't have known the difference. No reflection on the officer, just a comment on how an otherwise good process falls apart from lack of training. I suppose it would be impossible to train officers on all of the nuances of all the VIN ID's of all the cars they are likely to look at.

Steve

emccomas

Alabama also inspects the VIN of cars coming from out of state, all cars.

But you have to take the car down to the DMV. They come out to the car and verify the VIN.

I have taken more than none no-operational car down there on a trailer,

domenic tallarita

I have a 67/435 coupe that I bought wrecked in 1971. I have all the paperwork from the corvette dealer (AS-IS) with the vin on by bill of sale.
CA inspected the car and issued a pink slip (title) and the way I went. I was working at a Chevy dealer (mechanic) and I didn't have a problem finding parts as the corvette dealer started to dismantle the car.
My title had the correct vin followed by CA meaning the car was sold salvage.
When I did the frame up recently, I called for an inspection of the frame stamped vin and it matched. I then found the dealer that sold it, (Santa Ana CA) and called for records along with calling the corvette dealer that is still in business today. No luck in finding out any history. I then talked to a good friend that was a Los Angeles dective and asked him to run the #s and see if the car was stolen and wrecked. I see and hear of this happening when the investigate a case where a car was involved in a crime. The dective said that it couldn't be done. I asked him how they solved age old crimes running car #s. Didn't get a answer I wanted to hear. It was something like :to much red tape.
All I wanted was to see if he could get info on the accident my car was in so I could look up the original owner and get proof that it in fact is not a FAKE 435 HP. When I joined NCRS the first words in my post was that my car was a fake. Reason for that was that the tags were removed by the state when I purchased it.
I went to work on getting the CA removed from my vin for the purpose of restoration. Talked to the DMV inspector that was going to inspect my cars stamped vin #s and showed him repo tags that matched my car frame. I also showed him the vin tag that CA put on the cars frame that I had removed so I could do frame work (lie). After he inspected my paperwork and frame, I asked him if I could put the tags back where they were where they could be seen. He said "go for it". Then he went a bit further and told me to put my original title in a folder along with the other legal paperwork and apply for a lost title since my vette was out of the system for over 7 years.
Got the title back with the CA removed and installed the tags. Not every inspector would do that. But back to my question, Why can't the police dig back with our vin #s? Is it a privacy thing or what? Can one steal a car in CA, store it for over 7 years and apply for a lost title because the police won't do a search, or does there have to be a reason like a tampered vin for them to dig back to the last owner?

RatDog

My guess is that the officer has to have a legitimate legal reason (part of an active case or something) to do a search like that or he could get himself into some trouble.

Steve

ricks327

Steve,
Spot on! Back in the mid 70's I was dispatched to a residence to inspect
a very old English motorcycle. The new owner bought it in England and had it shipped to Michigan. At that time (not sure about today's standards) any motor vehicle w/o a out of state title, had to be inspected for VIN verification. Well, this nice fellow was an outstanding restorer of many old classic Rolls Royce vehicles and he politely had to show me where the serial number was on the motorcycle. The knowledge base of any current local LEO certainly would come into question. Maybe today, only the State Police handles such inspections but back in the day, any LEO was allowed to perform the inspection. I believe Michigan is one of the more difficult states for registering out of state vehicles coming into Michigan.
Rick

ricks327

True. There is an agency that does audits of police departments queries of license plates, VIN's and titles. They will randomly do investigations and any LEO is subject to dismal and being criminally charged for running LEIN (Law Enforcement Information Network) checks w/o proper reasons. Not worth it for a career. I've been retired for almost 20 years and I'm sure that policy hasn't changed.