VIN tag replacement

Hello all
I’m hoping someone has had this issue. I have a 68 Cougar that needed a donor body and in the swapping of all the good parts of my original car to donor car the VIN tags from both cars where taken off and the original car tags where not put on the new body. So my question is, how can I get new tags made with the original VIN that I have for the original car? The donor car does not have any tags at all.
Thank you

That may not be legal. It is called rebodying. To be leal you would need the original tags from the new body and use them.

I will leave the legal issue up to those with more knowledge then me. I believe that Kevin Marti can reproduce the door data plate. I am not sure that he offers a reproduction of the dash tag though, you would need to check with him on that. Why not put the original tags from the original car on the donor body? Or did you lose them? What did you do about the fender apron stampings? What about the buck tag?

Randy Goodling
CCOA #95

A G Backeast has a pretty satisfactory reputation for VIN tags.
http://www.datatags.com/

Talking to Marti or Back East is a good way to find out if what you want to do passes the smell test. Neither of them is interested in getting involved with anything sketchy. I think they will guide you towards what will fly long term.

When you say: “The donor car does not have any tags at all.” What it does have is the VIN stamped on the upper inner fenders. Unless your original car was very rare, you may be better off getting a title for the donor car using the VIN stamped on it.

Thanks for the reply’s.
Midsouthern Restoration was suppose to take the tags off and put them on the donor car. I asked and my original car was scraped and the donor car has no tags on the doors, dash and on the fender. I didn’t think it would be a such a problem.

As far as the legal issue, you definitely can’t change the VIN number of a vehicle which is what you’re doing if you switch tags. I don’t know what you’re going to have to go through to register a vehicle that doesn’t have any VIN numbers, but you’ll want to find out now.

I’m not so sure that Midsouthern place was entirely honest with you. Usually, a scrap yard won’t take a body with the VIN tags missing. At least they won’t in my state. They probably had to leave them on to dispose of the body legally.
How did the new body without tags show up? Did this Midsouthern place have a hand in that too?
Do you still have paper on the crushed body or did this place take that too?

I find it very hard to believe that the donor car does not have a VIN stamping on the inner fenders. In my close to 40 years of working on these cars I have never seen one that did not have a VIN stamping on the inner fender. You just are not looking at the right place. It is possible that you will need to pull the fender back a little to see it.

Randy Goodling
CCOA #95

I’ve seen '68s without apron stamps.

You have to pull the fenders back to see them. On the '67 you could see the one one on the drivers side without pulling the fender so many folks think the 68 didn’t have them there.

how do you know that the donor body is legit, as in not a stolen vehicle with the all identifiers removed?

I would need to see photographic proof of no VIN stamping. My understanding is that the federal government required those stampings.

Randy Goodling
CCOA #95

In 68 the federal requirements changed to requiring dash mounted plates instead of manufacturer chosen body locations.

That’s the first thing I noticed when I opened the the hood, was that there was no stamp on the driver side apron. As for the passenger side I didn’t know that I could be under the fender. I will have to loosen it up and see if there are numbers there.

One of my ‘68’s had both stamping under the fenders and both were covered with caulk/sealer.

I just looked at a 68 earlier this week and both PS and DS were under the fender. We loosened the flanges and lifted to verify that all numbers matched. Was pretty important for the purchase made!

Thanks. I will give it a look and see if the numbers are under the fenders. Thanks again.