Kind of funny all this back and forth about this car. Have you (OP) even checked to see if the VIN on the door frame is currently registered to someone............if it is then it's a moot point and it's just a parts car that you or anyone else can find another VIN and re-body this one too like wherever this car's VIN has gone

No, I haven't looked to see if the vin on door is currently registered to someone. How do you do this? Does my state DOT have a way to run the vin for all 50 states or is there some other way to find out?

Are you saying if the vin is registered there is no way to rebody this car with another vin and nothing can be done?

Wizard

I was working off of your first question and how some were going off on how or why you should or shouldn't do this. What would have happened if you could have gotten the door VIN decal made into a VIN tag and went to register it and by some chance you did and then the OTHER original VIN just happens to appear. That is not likely (or is it???)) to happen because I would hope two VIN's couldn't be register.....a little help here AK in PA

Right now it's a parts car in a salvage yard with probably the best bet is a salvage title or a State issued VIN and drive the crap out of it..............kind of like you stole it.

If the VIN tag is in use on another car & you apply for a state issued VIN, then they go after the loser that used another car's VIN on their car.

If that is the case, then 'his' car will be confiscated until it is all sorted out.

If you re-VIN the car, then the same thing could happen to you.

A good read on what can (and did) happen when a loser bought a VIN & title from Ebay & used them on his car at https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbt...tml#Post1244228

Something to think about when the usual resident fakers & frauds here encourage others to join them on the dark side.

Come to your senses man! That shell is a mess!....Core support is bent up. Looks like it's sitting on top of a heap. Probably fork lifted up there and the unibody is twisted. Even with a vin tag and clear title that car is questionable. Trust me I've let my Mopar emotions get ahold of me many times but all I can say is STOP and let this pass. 71 RR's are far from rare, keep looking.

let's see. my house burned down, and there is one wall standing and the basement, plus part of the deck became detached and fell away from the structure. do i rebuild "restoring" what's left, or do i just start over with something else, like a new house ? just because that car is a four speed and possibly butterscotch, how could it possibly make any economic sense to restore that thing, never mind the paperwork fiasco ? there are other butterscotch four speed cars out there done you can buy for pennies on the dollar. let's face a couple of facts. #1 : it doesn't appear to be anything especially super rare or a one of one car. and most importantly, #2 : you can't save everything. that is just a fact of life. if this was somehow in your family since new, then sentimental reasons may be worth it restoration wise, but until you get it home and really get a thorough picture of what parts it lacks, plus how bad the shell really is, i can only see a situation where a guys mind is bigger than his stomach. [or however that saying goes] you may have a noble intention, but maybe it's time to just let this one go. or, buy it for parts, sell off what is good and make a few bucks.

Okay, so we don't know what it is if its a 340 or 383 car but no one asked me if I have parts for these cars?? I did not look at the fender tag or find one laying around but going to look some more for it. No one asked me if I know how to do 90% of the work or how to restore a car. The more cars that are saved in our hobby, the better I see it. Once they are gone. They are gone. I never researched how many butterscotch 4 speeds were produced and I will try. Pennies on the dollar I will have to try to find one of those and investigate where these things are also.. It's a matter of opinion of how much you love the hobby and cars. I have been in it for over 30 years. Where people see a major problem and walk away or say its a parts car, I see another opportunity to bring back life to a car that is not in that bad shape and can be saved. How many 4 speed Road Runners were produced? How many Butterscotch? Not looking for super rare car, nor do I care if it is not. Would be nice though.. who knows.. maybe it is?? Problems with a shell don't bother me nor finding the parts for it that I don't have.

Wizard

man,i got crucified,lynched,pitchforked and torched on here for parting a much worse 70 runner and a gtx in the past
the 70 runner was missing the vin and was cut into 2 pieces
when i got it just for some parts.
but that didn't stop the
they just happened to help out 3 of my other cars come back
that were toast and many others that have bought parts off me.
but people just like to complain about
what you want to do with your own property.
i probably have most of the missing dash parts frame and all in my stash
the moral in all of this is
you can't win no matter what you do so,
just do what makes YOU happy and
ignore the background noise..

Don't get bummed out, some of us were just say forget about trying to do anything with this '71 with the original VIN. Buy it, get a salvage title for it and then get a PA State issued VIN plate for it. I still have an old motorcycle with a PA State issued VIN plate and no one ever looks at it as anything less than it is, (one of the best bikes I've ever owned and ridden BTW). And BTW the bike was (salvage titled) purchased and the VIN retag was done in Hersey, PA by a friend's father's m/c dealership, that's right near you right? No brainer if you can get the shell and salvage title GO FOR IT!

Here's what I would do with it but for street (legal use) and cruise nights and then over to Chrysler's at Carlisle in the summers.

MikeR

There is no way to combine paint color & transmission type to come up with a 'how many made' number. Color percentages were tracked for 1971, but it includes all Charger & Coronet based models. Percentages at;

http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/imag...ni_Book0003.jpg

Here's one all ready to go.....

https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1971/plymouth/roadrunner/100787274

Yes, $28,000. Not pennies on the dollar. But looks worth it must say.

The question was never "should I or shouldn't I ... ?", it was always "how would I ... ?" - all about the VIN !! It sounds to me like the OP is up to the task both mentally and probably physically so opinions on that point should be kept to yourselves. Address the issue at hand - how to legally get that car back on the road. And while there are some who think re-tagging it is a crime, keep in mind that it wasn't anything in particular until the dash was installed at the plant. It still isn't anything in particular until a dash is installed !

Personally I can't imagine why anyone would care how this thing gets re-tagged as long as nothing used in the process is stolen. If the original VIN is available on the door, check that it was legally scrapped. And when another dash and VIN is obtained, check that it can legally be put back on the road. Done deal !! A body is just a body - until the hemi is dropped in and the dash is installed. Then and only then is it a "hemi car".

10-4 on that.

How about the next owner, would he care? Until you buy a [censored] car and it gets exposed while you own it with no prior knowledge. Then what, does your insurance cover the loss on a rebody? Oh yeah, they will put a state issued VIN on it for you, that will help the resale value.

"Legally scrapped". What the heck does that mean? Is there some agency gonna associate that term to a VIN?

Are we citizens to go tell Motor vehicle dept when a car gets parted out?

Do you want to buy an unknown to you rebody next week?

Go look at the roadrunner nest form, it's all about 71 -71 Plymouth B bodies. As I said before, if it's not stolen and can be made legal, go for it.

To track it down and do it legally without "obtaining another dash and VIN" is an admirable goal. I am all for it, and I wish you luck.

What Stanton is spelling out is not legal or admirable, it is fraud.

Well yes, as a matter of fact there is. They're called insurance companies and they report to the DMV. Case in point ... any vehicle that was claimed as lost in any of the recent hurricane floods cannot be legally put back on the road. The cars are sold as "salvage", noted as flood damage, and the VINs are flagged.

Likewise, many salvage yards also submit the VINs of vehicles they're dismantling.

But you seem to be missing the whole point. The point is it can be done. Whether its illegal or not is questionable ... SHOW ME where it says you can't put a dash and VIN from one body into another and then I'll be convinced.

In the mean time, there's absolutely no way you'll convince me that changing 90% of the metal on a rotten car is any different that putting a dash in a decent shell. Take the rad support, trunk gutter section, torque boxes and dash out of a rotten Hemi Road Runner and swap them into a good '68 Belvedere shell and you have a '68 Hemi Road Runner PERIOD.

It is called VIN tampering. Moving a VIN from one car to another is VIN tampering.

Did you read the thread at the link I posted above?