[JohnTheobald]

Guys, this is my Camaro. I was just made aware of this today by somebody who noticed the N in the VIN code. I bought this car when I was 17 years old (I'm 47 now). My family flew out to CA from IL with the intention of driving home a 1969 Camaro that I was getting my first loan from a bank to purchase. We didn't have a car in mind, we just flew out and bought a bunch of auto traders and newspapers and spent a week driving all over southern California looking for the perfect one. I was told by the seller that this was an all original 1969 with a 327 and a powerglide...he said the only thing that wasn't original was the red paint and that it was originally white. I still have the ad from the Auto Trader magazine that I've kept for 30 years. Back then I had no knowledge of cowl tags, what the VIN numbers decoded to, etc... this was just a cool car and I bought it. It came with what I assumed was a genuine California pink slip and we drove it back to IL and registered it using the VIN that is in the dash. I still have the original bank papers showing the VIN on the loan documents.

So, after learning about this discrepancy, I located one of the "hidden" VINs up by the passenger side under the upper cowl. The partial VIN located there is 9L509293. Clearly, the two don't match, but the one under the upper cowl would be appropriate for the LOS body tag. I understand there is another VIN behind the A/C blower motor opening, but I'm hesitant to tear that apart to see what it is because it hasn't been apart since I've owned it and I don't want to cause any damage to it.

Afraid that one, or both, of the VINs were from a stolen vehicle, I ran both of them through the NICB stolen car database and came up with nothing. I also checked at the CheckThatVin.com site for a history and nothing. Carfax was also useless because they only go back to 1981. I've even contacted a friend of mine who is an Illinois State Trooper and he's running both VINs through their Motor Theft Task Force to see if they can find out anything about them.

If anybody here has any suggestions on how I can get definitive information on the origins of both VINs, I'd love to hear them. I've owned this car since 1986 and the whole time had absolutely no idea there was a discrepancy between the VIN # and the Cowl tag...never had a reason to care.

All that being said, it's still a very cool car with a rare set of options, and I totally agree...it would look pretty awesome restored back to the original Dover White.

My 12 year old told me he'd be just fine if I end up keeping it. Let him worry about the mismatched VIN numbers after I'm dead!