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OMG here we go again;

- if you swap all the parts onto another unibody but don't swap the body stamps or VIN, it's a clone.

- if you cut the numbers and weld them onto another unibody, it's a rebody not an original car.

- if you put a trunk floor and some quarter skins on to repair some rust it's a repair, not a rebody.

.....attempting to define a "rebody" as anywhere between those two last examples will generate a


Dave

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OK wait. It's 1972 & your wife is driving the '70 Hemi Roadrunner to the grocery store & she gets in a wreck. The upper rail of the radiator support & the left rear quarter panel (among other things) need to be replaced. Car goes into the body shop & they replace sheetmetal with new stuff from Chrysler - nobody even knows or cares about the numbers stamped in these places, so nothing gets "transferred" in the process. Original bent sheetmetal with these numbers gets trashed by the body shop. Oops! Not a real Hemi Roadrunner anymore!

In my book, here's a re-creation or a made-from-nothing car: Guy buys a 1970 318 Challenger. He pulls the drivetrain & drops in a 440, adds the R/T hood, adds rear valence with cutouts, the proper torsion bars, springs, brakes, rally gauges, etc. Then he has fender tags made to match what he built, & maybe he even has the vin tag from a wrecked car on a dash pad & title. OK, this car was made from something that no longer existed so this car would not be "real" in my book. Does someone make dash vin tags? For any price? Well, you need a title to match that, so that would be tough. Currently, I have a title for a 1970 Challenger R/T from an Arizona wrecking yard from back in the 80's. What if I gave it to someone & they decided to make a car to match that tag? Now I know that car was junked a long time ago so if someone had the title & tags & they resurrected it, it would be a fake in my book.

This wrecked Mod Top car was still in existence (assuming all the content in this thread is true which I assume it is) so it is a REAL car, but in very bad shape. What do you do? Crush it? If you took the rubble to a place like Roger Gibson Restoration & said "RESTORE IT - PRICE DOES NOT MATTER" I guarantee someone would make it like new again. And it would be a REAL car, not a new creation. If they re-bodied the car, transferred the numbers so you couldn't tell, but told you they did not re-body it, how could you tell? Would this make it any less real?

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See, I told you;

I actually agree with pretty much everything you said. The Hemi RR in your first example would remain a Hemi RR (I should have mentioned the VIN swap as a key rebody point) albeit one that takes a significant value hit 45 years later for not having the body numbers! However the non-disclosed rebody, wouldn't be a "real" car anymore IMO....at least not according to any definition that *I'm* comfortable with.

All I was really saying is that there will NEVER be any agreement on where the "restoration by rebody" line-in-the-sand resides. Personally, If you can use more than 50 percent of the original unibody, I would consider that the car may not be a rebody....others have wildly different definitions;....from "if you change a fender it's a rebody" all the way to "there is nothing wrong with welding in a 6" section of the body containing the stamp and using some new rivits to move the VIN over".

...even if you have a definition YOU can agree to yourself, you'll find a car that straddles that line.





Dave