I'm looking at a car that has no title...I know. The guy has a bill of sale on a piece of paper from someone who he got the car from. He has a picture of the VIN tag on said bill of sale. I'm not smart, but I think technically the tag should be on the car. He said he took it off to take to his local DMV to find the history of the car in an effort to get a title. My main question is how were vin tags secured to early Mopars, in this case a 64 Dodge. I have a 65 Dodge that is on the front of the drivers door jamb with no visible mechanical fasteners. He said his on the door jamb secured with screws. Which is the correct method? Thanks

In my experience the VIN tag on '65's was spot-welded to the hinge post. There are 2 holes in the tag that were used for alignment and grounding of the welder.

Correct. If you remove the vin tag and take it to someone of authority, it is there OBLIGATION to confiscate that vin tag. And yes I have heard of it being done before. run Forrest run. Or don’t pay much for it because you will have to go through the complicated process of getting a state issued vin.

Thanks fellas. That's what I thought. I've a couple early b bodies and I remember they were all like that. This guy is telling how much he has invested in the car, which is quite a bit, but he's really anxious to make a deal for half as much. Every time I balk he tries to sweeten the pot.

Spot-welded to hinge pillar as noted.
Removing it & taking it to the DMV for an inquiry of its history makes no sense to me.
Seller needs to clean up the VIN issue & paperwork.

Only worth the parts that on it, it’s stolen I’m sure. No paperwork, walk away or report to authorities.

Does the VIN number match what the car is? If so, I'd run the VIN number through one of the VIN verification services to see if it's been reported stolen. If not, and you are interested in the car and he seems "motivated" to sell, I'd lowball him with a ridiculous offer and see what happens. Perhaps his story is legit, all of us have seen people do stupid things over the years (I'm no exception). That is one problem with the pre-'68 cars, without the VIN number there is no way I know of to identify what the VIN is for a vehicle.

You buy that car and you could end up loosing it. No way to check the numbers on it. You might call local authorities and give them the details to see if it is listed as stolen. They could only hunt by model and year. It might be a hard job with no vin. He might be dumb enough to do what he said but I think not. I bet it never had a vin.. especially as a race car. I knew a guy that bought a car that was brought here by an airman when he moved from California. He stopped making payments on the car. My friend bought it, removed the numbers and made it a super stocker. To bad. That happened many times long ago.

Contact Chrysler Historical.

You can get a copy of the IBM card. With that you can see if the SO number stamped in the core support and rear of car matches what is on the card.

If it does then you just have a case of Willie Everlearn doing something stupid by removing the tag.

If you have the tag just reattach it using JB weld. Nothing illegal about it. It’s no different at that point then someone that removes their dashboard from their car.

But I would have the vin run before going to all that work.

Excellent advice.

Come to think of it - in NJ you can do an online search through their DMV site, but you'd have to know the VIN.
I've used it to see if a car has DMV or owner history or is titled to someone.
That was several years ago, so maybe privacy laws have killed that off.
If there's no paper trail on the car, and no known VIN, that of course won't work.

what is the year cutoff for chrysler historical to have info on ?
as always to those with more smarts than me, TIA !