GNX #298 on Ebay: PA reconstructed title

[turbojimmy]

Im sure there is a legal grey area aswell. What constitutes an illegal vin swap?

There is a lot of gray area in the PA statutes on this. It's really only illegal to swap 'essential parts' (parts containing information that identify a make or model) if you're swapping them to conceal or defraud. One could argue that this guy swapped the VIN tag and GNX parts over to a GN to a) conceal the fact that the car is really 'just' a GN and b) to defraud potential buyers into thinking they were buying a 'real' (as the vehicle left the manufacturer, i.e. ASC) GNX. However, there's no distinction in the VIN that tells you whether you have a GN or a GNX (I don't think) so are you really changing the make or model of the GN by swapping over a GNX VIN tag?

I think what the guy did stretches the definition of 'reconstructed' but after looking at the documentation (at least that I could find) it's not clear that it's illegal.

Also, there is an inspection required in PA to register the vehicle - before and after pics are required as well as receipts for parts. The inspection is done by an authorized mechanic. I've only been through it in NJ w/ a PA salvage title so I wasn't aware of that.

Jim

 

[GNX 233 485]

Vin Swap

There is a lot of gray area in the PA statutes on this. It's really only illegal to swap 'essential parts' (parts containing information that identify a make or model) if you're swapping them to conceal or defraud. One could argue that this guy swapped the VIN tag and GNX parts over to a GN to a) conceal the fact that the car is really 'just' a GN and b) to defraud potential buyers into thinking they were buying a 'real' (as the vehicle left the manufacturer, i.e. ASC) GNX. However, there's no distinction in the VIN that tells you whether you have a GN or a GNX (I don't think) so are you really changing the make or model of the GN by swapping over a GNX VIN tag?

I think what the guy did stretches the definition of 'reconstructed' but after looking at the documentation (at least that I could find) it's not clear that it's illegal.

Also, there is an inspection required in PA to register the vehicle - before and after pics are required as well as receipts for parts. The inspection is done by an authorized mechanic. I've only been through it in NJ w/ a PA salvage title so I wasn't aware of that.

Jim

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SWAP A VIN TO ANOTHER CAR IN ANY STATE. PERIOD. IT IS ILLEGAL

 

[pacecarta]

as far as im aware vin tampering is a federal crime
the statute as im aware reads that removal of the vin is the crime
if a vehicle is involved in an accident and the vin plate damaged and vehicle is going to be registered for use the vehicle is required to have a new vin issued by the state and that # affixed to the door jamb .
anyone whos done this also may find themseves doing alot of explaining at a traffic stop when an officer notices no vin on the dash but as long as you went through your state to get a new vin issued it all upfront and legal

if a vehicle is stolen and found later recovered without vin same applies

but under no circumstance may a vin be removed , that is the point where it becomes a crime and it isnt regulated by the state as to if its illegal

also in PA the frame used for reconstruction would have to appear on the titlle along with the vehicle vin, . it may have been possible to reconstruct the frame and even maintain the vin stampings on it but its doubtful that occurred , but i wasnt there so i cant say

but on this car its clear the vin left its original chassis

i was also told it was put on the doner car with std rivets making its swap even more evident

i know of someone who did this (non buick) to recab a rusted pickup truck and sold the vehicle cheap and informed the buyer what had transpired , seller got a cheap vehicle with a good title that matched the body shell and even the rest of the parts frame and driveline but somehow along the way dmv became aware of this and next thing the seller knew he was in court and the fines far exceeded the sale , it was a mess

 

[smurfyRX3]

Fake Gnx

I have to disagree with Pablo on a few points:

While it's true that there are many illegal transactions occuring around us at all times it does not mean that adding one more isn't a big deal. Yes, it's true that it is illegal to tamper with emissions equipment on vehicles. But it seem like a huge leap from that to vin swapping especially when you consider the possible consequences of each action. I know of at least two people who have had their cars seized by NYPD auto crime squad... whereas I've never heard of anyone getting their car taken away for not having cat.

Pablo is right, the chassis does not have a soul -but it does have a VIN which most probably doesn't match the VIN on the title or the transmission and thanks to these details this car will never again be a true GNX.

The bottom line is that this guy misrepresented the car and that omission of the truth may cost some newby computer/e-bay user thousands of dollars.

By the way I just joined the forum today... I was dragged in by this thread! Kudos to all of you who dug up the true history of this car... Keep up the good work!

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

yes its illegal but

have you guys looked at some of the 50s and early 60s cars that have been rebuilt
the NEW TERM IS REBODIED.
and the are bein sold that way. every where

in Brooklyn we would call that a tag job.

 

[turbojimmy]

"Rebodying" is not illegal as long as the VIN tag remains attached to the original body. One of the totaled cars I dealt with required a new frame - it was a Denali. They just put the body on a 'new' frame.

I'm intrigued by this subject so I did some more research. PACECARTA is correct - it is a federal crime to remove a VIN tag. When 'reconstructing' a vehicle you must reconstruct the body to which that tag is attached. That obviously did not happen in this case. The car can be confiscated and the seller and buyer (anyone involved in the trafficking) can be prosecuted under federal law. They do follow up on this stuff, too.

Jim

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

"Rebodying" is not illegal as long as the VIN tag remains attached to the original body. One of the totaled cars I dealt with required a new frame - it was a Denali. They just put the body on a 'new' frame.

Jim

i saw a 1967 camaro conv. that was "rebodied"
the frame was replaced. hit hard on front.
and fire wall from a hard top installed on the conv. body
then vin plate swapped.

 

[turbojimmy]

i saw a 1967 camaro conv. that was "rebodied"
the frame was replaced. hit hard on front.
and fire wall from a hard top installed on the conv. body
then vin plate swapped.

That's illegal. My uncle has a '69 RS/SS convertible that was totaled in a similar manner - they kept the VIN when they rebuilt it though.

Jim

 

[Pablo]

"Rebodying" is not illegal as long as the VIN tag remains attached to the original body. One of the totaled cars I dealt with required a new frame - it was a Denali. They just put the body on a 'new' frame.

I'm intrigued by this subject so I did some more research. PACECARTA is correct - it is a federal crime to remove a VIN tag. When 'reconstructing' a vehicle you must reconstruct the body to which that tag is attached. That obviously did not happen in this case. The car can be confiscated and the seller and buyer (anyone involved in the trafficking) can be prosecuted under federal law. They do follow up on this stuff, too.

Jim

Just to play devils advocate here, what would happen if say there was a large amount of damage right where the vin tag was on a vehicle. To replace the area you would have to graft an a pillar/dash area from a donor vehicle to your vehicle. Would you then have to change titles to reflect that your car is now the donor vehicle? If not, you would have to drive around with a VIN on your dash that wasnt yours, right? That is to say if I understand your post to mean that you cannot remove a vin under any circumstance.

By the way
Seriously, I dont think the authorities care. I bought a firebird when I was about 17 that might have had a fishy history when I realized it had been completely repainted a different color, t/a gfx added, and, the vin number plate on the dash was almost completely illegible, rusty, and damaged... yet the rest of the interior/dash was immaculate. The only other vins that I ever saw were the printed labels GM puts on their cars that were taped and or glued onto the car.
The Title of the car reflected the new color, and what digits I could make out on the vin plate.
I went through several emissions inspections, never had a problem once I showed the taped on vin (lol) and believe me, I was pulled over numerous times and the vin was looked at. I had a cop tell me "You should get that vin fixed" how the hell am i going to do that I thought while I nodded. My car was never taken and never got any kind of citation for it.

I think the only person that could maybe make a stink about it is the buyer. Im no lawyer, but I would think for him to try and fight something out in court would not be worth it considering the cost and what would seem to me like an iffy case.

And to the poster talking about never hearing about anyones car being taken for a missing cat; You should come to California. You'll hear about that stuff all the time. Theres even an instructional police video floating around on the net from CA showing what emissions illegal modifications the police should look for.

 

[TWISTER]

Believe me Im no expert on this and this board is all about opinions but being legal is being legal.
Yes they got a nice Gn w GNX parts on it for the money.
Yes it may be the only way many of us could ever afford a GNX.
Yes we all know that the law may not give a crap about an illegal car like this.
Yes maybe we are all a little jealous we are not the new owner.
Till the day that the law decides to make an example of the new owner and his Illegal tagged car and ends up in a world of crap and legal problems once the State gets their finger on you and make your like miserable. No thanks Ill just keep driving my POS GN that gives me no legal worries.
Honestly if you owned the car knowing its history could you really enjoy it without always looking over your shoulder?
Good Luck to the new owner. Maybe they know something all of us dont. Obviously The seller and ebay does.
Like I said just another opinion.

 

[GNX 233 485]

You are NOT allowed to tamper with a VIN tag.

Just to play devils advocate here, what would happen if say there was a large amount of damage right where the vin tag was on a vehicle. To replace the area you would have to graft an a pillar/dash area from a donor vehicle to your vehicle. Would you then have to change titles to reflect that your car is now the donor vehicle? If not, you would have to drive around with a VIN on your dash that wasnt yours, right? That is to say if I understand your post to mean that you cannot remove a vin under any circumstance.

By the way
Seriously, I dont think the authorities care. I bought a firebird when I was about 17 that might have had a fishy history when I realized it had been completely repainted a different color, t/a gfx added, and, the vin number plate on the dash was almost completely illegible, rusty, and damaged... yet the rest of the interior/dash was immaculate. The only other vins that I ever saw were the printed labels GM puts on their cars that were taped and or glued onto the car.
The Title of the car reflected the new color, and what digits I could make out on the vin plate.
I went through several emissions inspections, never had a problem once I showed the taped on vin (lol) and believe me, I was pulled over numerous times and the vin was looked at. I had a cop tell me "You should get that vin fixed" how the hell am i going to do that I thought while I nodded. My car was never taken and never got any kind of citation for it.

I think the only person that could maybe make a stink about it is the buyer. Im no lawyer, but I would think for him to try and fight something out in court would not be worth it considering the cost and what would seem to me like an iffy case.

And to the poster talking about never hearing about anyones car being taken for a missing cat; You should come to California. You'll hear about that stuff all the time. Theres even an instructional police video floating around on the net from CA showing what emissions illegal modifications the police should look for.

To answer your question, the car with the damage by the vin would have to get a revin by your local DMV Auto theft unit. Case in points, when the 95 Nissan maxima came out they were being stolen left and right. They would break apart the dash board to steal the air bags. The vin number on a maxima is attached to the dash board. The car would need a new dash board and it would have to get a revin done. Same as if you would fix a cowl where the vin would be on a GNX. There is no Gray area, there is no what if, there is no question. You can NOT remove a vin number and place it back on the same car or another car. You can not touch the rivets of a vin number. The Auto theft unit does take this very serious. They will impound a car with a tampered vin, they will arrest an owner of a car that has a tampered vin.

 

[Pablo]

Hmm, that answers that question I suppose. That got me thinking about something I remember seeing at the junkyard though.
They would take cars, and cut them in half, or from the firewall forward, etc, and then ship those to customers so that they could rebuild other cars that obviously had front end damage. Im talking about everything from the front seats forward they would ship out. I assume they would then weld the new half with the old half together. What happens in that situation? Lets say I cut a car in half, and then weld half of another car to it. Which vin then do I use? If you say the front half then how about if the car is cut in half lengthwise... is it the drivers side? I know this sounds ridiculous, but for it to be a legit law, there must be some very specific criteria for how this goes down.

Im not trying to be a dick, but it still seems like a grey area to me. I'm pretty creative and can come up with a number of scenarios that still dont seem cut and dry.

But to your comment about them taking it serious... maybe that particular unit.
The same can be said about the special smog units here in CA. That hasn't stopped a CHP officer from checking out my car like any car guy would and admiring my mods despite their emissions illegality.

So for me though, my real world experience has proven otherwise.

I really wish I had a picture of the vin plate on my old car to show you what I mean. It was obviously tampered with, and seen by several Miami-Dade (not some podunk force) police officers. I never drove worried about it either.

Maybe a police officer can come in here and shed some light on this, but I think nitty gritty automobile regulations are pretty far down the list of things they are worried about.

By the way, im not a GNX freak or low mile trailer queen buyer so I wouldnt know the answer to this, but.. Lets say he sold the car as a GN that had all of the parts (except the vin) swapped over from a real GNX. Its now nearly a perfect duplicate of the original GNX that was destroyed (which from what I understand is what it would be). The car has the 68,xxx miles that it has... How much would the car fetch money wise?
Wasnt there a poster mentioning that they bought their gn with 20k miles for 18k?

 

[GNX 233 485]

Clone

Hmm, that answers that question I suppose. That got me thinking about something I remember seeing at the junkyard though.
They would take cars, and cut them in half, or from the firewall forward, etc, and then ship those to customers so that they could rebuild other cars that obviously had front end damage. Im talking about everything from the front seats forward they would ship out. I assume they would then weld the new half with the old half together. What happens in that situation? Lets say I cut a car in half, and then weld half of another car to it. Which vin then do I use? If you say the front half then how about if the car is cut in half lengthwise... is it the drivers side? I know this sounds ridiculous, but for it to be a legit law, there must be some very specific criteria for how this goes down.

Im not trying to be a dick, but it still seems like a grey area to me. I'm pretty creative and can come up with a number of scenarios that still dont seem cut and dry.

But to your comment about them taking it serious... maybe that particular unit.
The same can be said about the special smog units here in CA. That hasn't stopped a CHP officer from checking out my car like any car guy would and admiring my mods despite their emissions illegality.

So for me though, my real world experience has proven otherwise.

I really wish I had a picture of the vin plate on my old car to show you what I mean. It was obviously tampered with, and seen by several Miami-Dade (not some podunk force) police officers. I never drove worried about it either.

Maybe a police officer can come in here and shed some light on this, but I think nitty gritty automobile regulations are pretty far down the list of things they are worried about.

By the way, im not a GNX freak or low mile trailer queen buyer so I wouldnt know the answer to this, but.. Lets say he sold the car as a GN that had all of the parts (except the vin) swapped over from a real GNX. Its now nearly a perfect duplicate of the original GNX that was destroyed (which from what I understand is what it would be). The car has the 68,xxx miles that it has... How much would the car fetch money wise?
Wasnt there a poster mentioning that they bought their gn with 20k miles for 18k?

If he would have just started with a regular 1987 hardtop GN and swapped over all the GNX parts to make a 100% accurate clone, he would have a legit car that is worth at least 25,000.00 Heck the GNX parts alone are worth at least 20,000 if you were to sell them. But he chose to do a tag job vin swap deceptive GNX, that will someday be in a Police pound. As far as the junk yard sending out the complete half of the cars, they do this for a good reason. The customer gets everything they want and the junk yard only spends about 10 minutes in selling the nose. If they were to disassemble the entire nose and cut out the radiator support it would take too much time. Then the yard also does not have to have the boned car laying around. In the yard, space is everything.

 

[Delerius]

Does anyone have any idea who made that tweeter? I've been into car audio a long time and I can't recall any company making a direct replacement speaker like that for the dash. That speaker was not hand made so I'm interested in finding who made it. If anyone has any possible leads, please let me know...
Has anyone followed up with the Chambersburg police regarding this car? The company I work for is about 5 miles from this place and I honestly feel justice needs to be served here. If no one has contacted the officer, I will make the call...

 

[GNX 233 485]

Tweeter

Does anyone have any idea who made that tweeter? I've been into car audio a long time and I can't recall any company making a direct replacement speaker like that for the dash. That speaker was not hand made so I'm interested in finding who made it. If anyone has any possible leads, please let me know...
Has anyone followed up with the Chambersburg police regarding this car? The company I work for is about 5 miles from this place and I honestly feel justice needs to be served here. If no one has contacted the officer, I will make the call...

That tweeter is a factory GM tweeter for the 86/87 concert sound system. I have several sets of them if you want to buy them. 25.00 per set.

 

[Delerius]

Thanks for the reply GNX 233, 485... I was a little confused in some of the earlier posts regarding on whether the 3 1/2 speaker was used or not...

 

[garyk1970]

That tweeter is a factory GM tweeter for the 86/87 concert sound system. I have several sets of them if you want to buy them. 25.00 per set.

i feel the same way, ive installed car audio for twenty years and this is first time ive seen soft dome tweets,usually a paper cone tweets(ive had 86,87's w/concert sound)....send me a pic of your tweets please.another option for the concert sound option????

 

[70Mach1]

You can NOT remove a vin number and place it back on the same car or another car. You can not touch the rivets of a vin number. The Auto theft unit does take this very serious. They will impound a car with a tampered vin, they will arrest an owner of a car that has a tampered vin.

Have to dissagree with you here. I have restored several cars (although they are/were classics) and I needed to remove the vin during restoration. As long as they are restored to the original car there never was a problem. Here in Florida, when cars come from out of state, the DMV needs to inspect and verify the vin, and they never had any issue. I would guess the same would apply to newer cars as well. Sometimes accident damage would require this.

 

[Pablo]

.
Has anyone followed up with the Chambersburg police regarding this car? The company I work for is about 5 miles from this place and I honestly feel justice needs to be served here. If no one has contacted the officer, I will make the call...

I think you should. I'm curious to see what happens.

Since theres no stolen car and neither the buyer nor the seller are the ones complaining I'd wager that nothing happens at all. Who wants to make a bet?

Either way though, I think it would be better for us to know rather than to sit here and speculate as we have been.

 

[turbojimmy]

I think you should. I'm curious to see what happens.

Since theres no stolen car and neither the buyer nor the seller are the ones complaining I'd wager that nothing happens at all. Who wants to make a bet?

Either way though, I think it would be better for us to know rather than to sit here and speculate as we have been.

I'd bet the local police won't care or do anything about it. If you contact the feds they'll definitely check it out. I've had to contact the FCC and the CPSC over the past year and they are very responsive.

Jim