[TR] [EXTERNAL] Re: VINs

[Michael Porter]

On 11/7/2019 7:43 PM, Wbeech at flash.net wrote:
> Brian,
> It comes down to do you want to be right, or get a title and tags for 
> your car.  Bill

Sometimes you get neither.  Back in the early Zeroes, I bought a car in 
Texas, A TR7 (well, hell, it was an oddity with a John's Cars Buick V-6 
conversion), and drove it back to NM.  Admittedly, I looked at the VIN 
and thought it matched the title and didn't think any more about it, 
because Texas gave me temporary tags and the insurance company was okay 
with it.

When I went to title the car in NM, though, I discovered that there was 
a zero missing in the middle of the VIN number on the title (two zeroes 
in a row on the car's VIN plate).  So, I did all the due diligence 
research, proving that there couldn't have been a car with that VIN as 
shown on the title.  The prefixes had to have been different for a 
serial number that short, and so this had to be a transcription error, 
not a stolen car.

To no avail.  Bureaucratic turgidity and turbidity being what they are, 
I was told that they don't match, so, no title.  (In the late `80s, 
apparently the FBI got on NM's case for being too lax in titling cars 
stolen in Texas and Oklahoma and, ever since, they've been absolutely 
cranky about numbers matching.  When I titled the VW bus here in 1990, 
they made me prove that the VIN tag hadn't been forged--on a funky 1968 
VW bus!--fortunately, I knew where the VIN was stamped into the frame 
and could show them.)

The error, at the least, went back to a titling in Connecticut, but, the 
trail stopped there.  Had to appear in person to make an inquiry, and 
just didn't have time or money for that at the time.


Cheers.


>
> Cactus Jack drinks coffee black......BWS
BWS?  Wasn't that Michael Martin Murphey?

-- 


Michael Porter
Roswell, NM


Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking distance....