Factory VIN Error - Check this out!

My buddy has owned this car for 30 years. It's a factory V-Code 1970 Challenger with some nice options. The rad support and cowl are stamped with 205102 as the last six digits of VIN but all other VIN items including dash tag, door decal, fender tag and title have 185102 as the last six digits. Exactly 20 thousand units off? Has anyone here seen this before? There is no build sheet and I didn't check motor or trans VIN, but the car looks legit to me. Attached are the body stampings

And here are the other VIN items. Pretty weird. Anyone ever see this before?

I have heard of one less than 100 VIN digits away that has the second number in the assigned sequence off.

I have also heard of two now from the LA plant with body VIN sequence numbers that start with a 9.

People make mistakes sometimes.

mistakes happened all of the time back in the old days.

i had a 71 340 cuda HT car that had NO #'s stamped into the body. nothing in the cowl or the radiator support.

Alaskan_TA - My buddy is besides himself after I showed him the discrepancy. In your opinion, would this factory screw up affect the value?

I know of a V-Code 71 Charger that has the V missing in the dash VIN. All the others are correct. Quality control was not the best back then...

I wouldn't think so when he's owned it that long and everything else is correct. It would raise more eyebrows if it was a digit that made it from a less desirable car to a more desirable one.

What you had was a body in White car, which was usually given to factory sponsored door car class racers ,stock, SS, modified eliminator, gas class, and Pro Stock for them to make a class legal car without having to strip a complete car to start with Most of them would have been chemically strip, acid dip maybe also before starting the builds on them. they where bare shells with all the sheet metal sent along with them for the racer to assemble the way they wanted them to be fit up That was a good find

it could have been. i didn't know the history of the car and the owner didn't know much about the car also.

the car was a K5 brown 340 4 speed white billboard car with white leather interior and no vinyl top. there was no build sheet or fender tag so i didn't know what was factory or installed later and it was rusty as sin.

the guy i bought it from bought the car for the GC cardboard headliner and overhead console. i bought the car for the seat cores and interior trim panels with the woodgrain inserts. it was a somewhat odd car to me. it was a high end car with leather interior, rim blow wheel, rally dash, fender inserts but no power windows, no vinyl top and i would assume never had a 6 way seat adjuster because i broke the seat track studs when removing the seats.
i picked the body clean sold the parts i didn't need and scrapped the rest.

Look close at the car. Maybe it was in a collision in the 70’s and was clipped. Meaning, the front half of the car was replaced with a used front half. This was common repair practice back then. Look for splices in the windshield pillars and rockers. Seeing the yellow overspray on the door latches might indicate it’s been through a major redo.

The front clip theory is out because those body sequence numbers would have been assigned to a Plymouth Valiant, either a sedan or a Duster.

As far as value goes, I am not an appraiser.

The owner had the car repainted about 10 years ago, but appeared to be original paint before then. I use to work at a restoration shop and am familiar with collision repairs. I'm 95% certain this car was never in an accident. Just odd that Chrysler would stamp body exactly 20,000 sequence numbers off.

Stranger than that was a 71 Cuda Vert I almost bought.Was new on the floor.Vin all emblems and window sticker said Hemi.Only trouble was it was a 440.My buddy the salesman was trying hard for me to buy it.Sadly I didnt and it was cheap as they didnt want to return it.Supposeedly Galen said there was at least 1 other he knew of the same way but not a vert.Rocky

Many production errors on many cars where sent to the dealers to sell
Never say never on any high production parts sold to the public

I can only speak for myself. I would pay less for a V code with a numbers discrepancy, than an equally restored V code without the descrepancy. I would actually pass on the car unless it was really doing it for me. It’s unfortunate because I feel it could be a factory error.

My wife's cousin had a 73 Charger that was beautiful but was always wearing out tires. Her friend was following her over to a repair shop and said her car was going down the road sideways (dogtracking)! They put it on the lift and found out it was two cars welded together...

I tend to agree. What are the odds that it was clipped like that and only the one number was off.

My 1969 dart GTS H code car has a factory over stamp on the dash tag, the 2 is directly stamped onto the 3
Galen G had never seen one like that until he saw mine

Looks like cowl and rad support #s don't match. I see 205102 0n cowl and 201502 on rad. support.

the core support is upside-down, both are "B0 205102"

Agreed. I have more pictures. They are both stamped B0 205102.

I have seen several mistakes over the years. The link is to a 70 cuda that recently sold on ebay. The #'s on the engine and trans have one digit off in compairrison to the other's on the car. Years ago There was also a 70 hemicuda in the area that was missing it's body stampings. They made mistakes




https://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-Plymouth-Barracuda-Cuda-/274121620120?