And you thought STUDEBAKERS got rusty...

yikes!

I think that falls under the category of "just mail me the VIN plates and trim and keep the rest..." use a donor car, indeed!

nate

Good point Nate...

I wonder if that nice shovel is in that deal ??

Lansing

Well, Nate, you can bet they're going to start tightening up on VIN plate transfers. Just wait 'till you see the July Hemmings Muscle Machines (I got mine yesterday as a subscriber). BIG article, naming names with photos, of a fraud case involving a freshly-generated VIN plate and a purported 1970 Hemi 'cuda sold through Hemmings Motor News for $80,000...advertised without having a hemi in it now, but still brought the money because it was a correctly-coded "R" in the VIN number. It's quite a story. BP

I really dig the strap across the interior holding the hole dang thing together.

Mark

65 Cruiser snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

OK, that brings up a question for discussion. What if the VIN plate was not "freshly generated" ? Let's assume the rust bucket on ebay was a real hemi and you bought it for the chassis, vin and body tags. You pull the body off the frame and restore it using a solid donor body moving the tags over to the donor. You install every unique Hemi bit and rebuilt it to the build sheet specs. Have you created a car, or restored one ?

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

Bob:

There ARE cars out there that rust faster than a Studebaker. It's well known Studebaker got a bad rap for the 'usual' spot on the front fenders, but a lot of unit-body cars from the sixties and seventies rusted worse and in more dangerous (i.e. top of front strut tower, rear spring mounts) locations. The problem is that it wasn't readily visible until it was sometimes too late. Remember the notorious Aspen/Volare rust issues, especially in the inner and outer front fender area. The same also applied to the Vega from GM. And I can name several imports, especially Italian and early Japanese cars that rusted so bad after about five years that would make that 36 year old Barfacuda on Ebay look 'restorable'.

Craig.

If you ask me, you've restored one, John. You didn't create anything that didn't already exist. The problem with the car in the July 2006 Hemmings Muscle Machines fraud report, of course, is that a new plate was made to create a car that never existed; that was never manufactured by Chrysler Corporation.

That SHOULD BE an entirely different issue than using the primary parts from a donor car to recreate a legitimate car that no longer exists as originally manufactured due to natural deterioration or collision and subsequent scrappage. The problem becomes convincing the various non-hobbyists at BMVs that there IS that dramatic difference, when they are more concerned with, and more used to dealing with, late-model cars involved in more traditional, if you will, late-model theft and fraud.

Personally, I don't think this bodes well for the hobby, quite frankly. But like everything else, if it is ruined, it will be by shysters within the hobby not conducting themselves ethically. So what else is new? BP

I agree with you completely on that one, Bob. Its made with already existing components. A friend of mine works at a 'professional' autowreckers. What I mean by 'professional' is that they pay rather high $$ for expensive wrecks, and their main clientele is auto body shops. The only sell an entire front clip, for example, not a piece of trim only from it, and any part that has to be removed to get at something else is tagged and inventoried. We all know there are lots of cars around that have had body repairs done to them over the years, but these days, VIN's are stamped in several places; not just in two or three spots. Therefore, it probably will not be uncommon to find a car to have a different VIN appear on a certain part of the car than what is on top of the dash and at the other end of the car. It will be interesting to see what extent "matching numbers" will mean a few years from now, and how the proverbial 'never been in an accident' statement is going to mean something when ALL the VIN's on the car match.

But as far as 'created' cars go? Just a few years ago, some Ferrari bodymen got busted for fraud by creating 'old' Ferraris from scratch. And the Italian government ordered them to be destroyed to show the seriousness of the crime.

Craig

>

It's doable if,

? You have infinite patience

? You have adequate resources

? You have adequate time

? Did I mention patience??

The closest thing that I can associate in the Studebaker world is Bondo's Hawk From Hell. I remember well all the photos of what the car looked like and how it was transformed.

In my own case, the closest example would be my current drier T-Cab and that had one tenth of the rust of the Mopar... And, I wouldn't want to repeat the experience ever!

JT

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

...and then there is that little issue of the "secret" serial number on the frame...

JT

John Poulos wrote:

I have seen Fords and Cadillacs from the 1960's have frames that were so rusty that they had to have huge pieces of angle iron scabbed on in order to remain driveable.

My neighbor back east was a used car dealer and brought home a shiny late '60's Ford and I remarked that he should check the frame. I reach under, squeezed it and had a sizable piece of it in my hand. I never saw the car after that...

JT

There was a 'Rusty Ford scandal' here that resulted in a class action lawsuit over premature rustout on Fords from the late 60's and early

70's. Rusted frames were more prevalent in the salt-belt area cars, but I recall the doors were extremely bad for rusting out; especially below the belt line trim where it tucked under and got sprayed by all the salt and gravel. Ford's solution to the rusted out doors was their highly advertised 'Duraguard' thick coating on the lower body areas from 1977 or so.

If it ain't readable or there, then it's a non-issue.

JT

John Poulos wrote:

So when you sell it would you tell the buyer it was built from 2 or 3 or 4 cars.......or just neglect to mention it was rebodied?

Bob40