So, last night I’m watching FantomWorks, and they have a 57 Chevy that was a lot rougher than the owner had expected (internet purchase), and they decided to do a rebody - including cutting out the original VIN and welding it in the new car.
He said he called the state and was told that as long as he doesn’t mess with the rivets, he’s good - SOOOO he cuts the sheet metal about 1/2" around the data plate and welds it in the new car. 
Not a fan of the guy or the show. It doesn’t surprise me.
I concur. Not a fan of the dude or the show! You couldn’t pay me to let him restore/work on my car.
They look like they do solid work, just not 100% factory correct. They did a 1970 Orange Shelby GT500 a while back, and while it looked OK it was far from a 100 point show winner. Since they specialize in Chevrolet (Corvettes, etc), they don’t know Fords that well. The real benefit for me was that they used to show the invoice for each car at the end of the show, showing hours spent, parts, etc. For a ground up rebuild/restoration they have been putting in around 900 hours per car. That seemed quite high, since our average here @ Taylor restoration is more like 500 hours. The majority of the cars that we fix here are essentially rust free, vs. that really rusty crusty East Coast stuff which I’m sure drives a ton of labor hours for metal repairs.
They also consulted with the VA DOT before they did the job of attaching the old VIN to a new Chinese made body to make sure it was legal. Remember it’s a TV show so everything takes longer and costs more because of all the added (made up for TV) drama and camera crew etc. Thank goodness I work on my own cars! I could not afford to have them work on my cars.
I watched a local show here in ohio and they filmed a date code being changed on a trunk deck.And I thought that was bad!!But I wonder if the fact that a new body was used,and not a previously titled body made it legal? Im sure every states law is different.
As previously stated, its a TV show and like all the other ones on I try and keep that in mind. Do labor hours include camera and mic setup for all the taping, are the customers reimbursed $$$ for having their car shown on TV? Who knows and i’m not losing any sleep over it. I think the 1 thing that is consistent across the board is that people buy a lot of cars that “aren’t as advertised” that end up in these shops.
I’m a fan of the show. They have realistic time frames, months or a year and not a week. Dan is the boss and gives orders to employees and doesn’t spend the show taking them to paint ball events or other team building or jokes not related to the job at hand. Their work looks good to me and they specialize in American cars of the era I’m most interested in. As for the VIN tag change, the age of the car and the fact that it’s an after market never before titled shell seem to make the switch plausible. Alas, all the after market sheet metal is stamped in Taiwan. At least it isn’t China (yet).
I am not familiar with the FantomWorks TV show. IMHO… I think that promoting rebody VIN swaps for classic car restoration in general would be a questionable act. Owner #1 of the finished product is likely aware & good with the rebody VIN transplant. But, then comes the scenario of hypothetical resale, and /or multiple future re-sales, with the VIN transplant topic being conveniently void from discussion. The latter being a recipe for a very unhappy owner that’s discovered their purchase was not (as TomKat remarked)… as advertised.
Based on the episodes I’ve seen, I would not let that clown work on my lawnmower. Mind you, my lawnmower is nothing special: just an old Toro I found in the swap area @ the town dump.
I have watched the show several times I like learning what problems people run into. I don’t take my mower in for service so I don’t know about that. I never considered taking my cougar in for someone else to repair because I purchased it for me to work on.
The VIN issue is interesting because if it make a difference to you should be able to spot the difference between original and cheap replacement parts or pay someone that can. Government involvement in the situation is for taxation.