Posted by Mr.PG on Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 12:24:17 :
These are your thoughts down below..."but you simply cannot take a VIN tag/serial # plate off a vehicle no matter what it is and put it on another vehicle and call it that."
"But you cant swap the serial # tag from one truck to another. That is fraud and illegal. No ifs ands or butts about it."
Here is my thought...Farmer John Q. Smith lives in Smith Center, KS (which is NW of Salina). Mr. Smith has 2 PW's...his beloved black 1949 and his new red 1952. One cold winter afternoon while hauling hay out of the field he's following Spence and Junior (the 2 newly hired farm hands) who are driving the black 1949 and he's driving his new 1952. Spence and Junior were discussing the finer points of the rear belt pulley & PTO on the black 49 and how one day they would each like to have their own PW. About this time 4 bales of hay fall off the back of the 49 and Mr. Smith has to swerve to avoid the bales and hits a patch of ice with his new 52 PW. The truck slides off the road, into the ditch, and lands on the roof mangling the roof and the driver's door. For weeks Mr. Smith is sick about wrecking his new truck and isn't sure what to do. The body shop helps him locate a replacement cab and the other parts required to fix his Power Wagon. The PW received the replacement cab and other parts and Mr. Smith and the boys took the vin tag from the wrecked original 52 cab and put it on the replacement cab. Now the truck looks as good as new and no one can tell it was ever wrecked. All is going well on the Smith ranch for now.
Fast forward 55 years.....Mr. Smith has passed away and Mrs. Smith is being moved to a nursing home in Salina, KS and everything will be auctioned. Todd Wilson hears about a farm auction in Smith Center, KS. Todd drives out to the auction to check out the Power Wagon and about falls over when he sees the Mint condition of the red 1952 PW. He is amazed at how original, clean and unmolested the truck is. He takes several pictures of the truck, writes down the vin # from the door jamb, which matches the frame#. The winch is date coded 52 as well as all 4 rims and the spare. Todd just cannot believe what a find this is! Todd buys the truck at auction for $650.00 and is all excited because he FINALLY has himself a PW. When he gets home he takes many pictures and immediately registers it in the Registry and shares it with everyone on the Forum. How is he, or anyone else, to know that the cab on that truck was swapped if all existing details on the truck match? They would not!! After owning the truck for several months Todd takes the PW to the PW Rally in Iowa where he runs into one of the old farm hands, Junior, who now owns the black 49 that was on the farm. Junior makes him aware of what happened to the truck when it was almost new. Todd Wilson cannot believe his PW has had the cab swapped and is suddenly no longer a #'s matching truck. Todd decides to hire a lawyer and go after Mrs. Smith for a fraudelent vehicle sale since the truck has been tampered with, and was not disclosed at the time of the sale.
Do you think that any of this would hold up in court? Do you really think anyone in the legal system cares about a truck that is 50 some years old? I do realize on new vehicles it is illegal to tamper with vin tags. I was looking at purchasing a newer Dodge Ram Truck that had been in a wreck. The truck needed a cab swap. I checked with the local state trooper and the DMV to find out what was required to do this properly. They told me the laws in each state vary but what I would have to do is have a state trooper come out and inspect the truck after it was rebuilt. The vin# off the replacement cab and the vin# off the original truck are both recorded and the new title contains two vin #'s. I asked the state trooper about what was done in times past and he said vin tags were offten swapped out until auto theft became so common. I asked him if I would get in trouble nowadays for swapping out tags on a PW when replacing a cab and he said no one would take the time to prosecute on a vehicle that's 50 years old.
So if I bring a PW frame to the rally to sell and give the gentleman the vin tag that matches the frame #, at that point would you please notify the local authorities! So I can be arrested and prosecuted under full jurisdiction of the law.
Matt
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