Re: State of Hobby
Guys I have had some of the same concerns. Years ago I had built a Yenko clone before there was ever such a thing. Other than a few things that were wrong it was hard to tell it from a real one. However the trim tag would because I did not buy a repro one to change the color of the car. The original color of the car was Butternut Yellow which was not available on the Yenko Camaro in 69. I traded the car off after only a few months of owning it and it passed through a couple of other car dealers and eventually was sold as a legit car.
The kid that bought the car did not know it wasn't real as he was never told. Once he got the car home and was inspecting it is when he found out that it wasn't real. What gave it away, the 10-bolt multileaf rear that was original to the car! I never changed it as it was a daily driver and I never represented the car as a true Yenko. Well that kid tried to go back to the place where he bought the car and when he got there they were gone. Closed for good and not a car in sight. He ended up keeping the car and spent a lot of money making it correct. He bought a correct date coded MN code 427 with M21 trans and then he found a correct date coded BE rear axle. Now this car was correct except for the trim tag showing the original BY color code. Since then the kid (22 yrs old) has died from cancer and the car was sold to another dealer. It came up for sale a few years ago as a "clone" and is now somewhere in Alabama.
With repro trim tags still being made today, the owner could have a correct one made and then have a really good clone car. This car could possibly be passed off as a legit car say 10 years down the road and it would be hard to prove it.
How does this get prevented, easy, publish the numbers for all of the Yenkos and known COPO's. Once that is done this problem will go away for those cars. That is the only solution for this. However we know that some people still make money by confirming whether the car someone is buying or selling is a legit Yenko or COPO by keeping the numbers to themselves. I don't have a problem with that as long as there are still cars out there to be bought that are not documented. Now Yenkos are not the only cars cloned, how many 69 Z-28's are on the road today compared to the amount made? I bet it is close to double the original numbers. Clone/fake cars have been around for years as once people found out that their 350 Camaro was worth more if they added SS emblems and stripes then it went downhill from there.....................RatPack...........
Sorry for the long post but sometimes I get a little long winded.........
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