I would have to say that a fair percentage of the nice camaros in my area are tag jobs.Not the kind that make them Yenkos,or Motions,but just the opposite.Most of the original supercars were struck by Jewish lightening back in the 70's and vanished off the face of the earth.The owners would take the insurance check and use it to make the cars into race cars.In New York,it seems that many race cars were floating around with VIN tags and no titles over the past 20 years,and as these cars are being converted back to pro street and even restored cars,the owners are scared to do a title search because they know how many of the 70's era race cars were actually built with fraudlous insurance money.Cars would change hands many times without a title since you dont need one for a drag car,and then after years and years the cars end up being fitted with tags from the nearest rustbucket 6 banger that turns up in the auto shopper.In reality,more of the supercars that went MIA were actually never destroyed in the traditional sense,but rather their owners would call them in stolen to get the insurance check to finance the conversion of the car into a drag car.Sometimes the cars were stripped of a few parts and left under a bridge,and would later be legitimatly sold through insurance auctions to racers who would build them into drag cars and retain the salvage title.Sometimes the racers would take the cars directly off the hands of a hard up youngster who couldnt afford the payments anymore.Either way the vast majority of supercars were killed in this fashion rather then by collisions or rusty deaths.I know of littleraly dozens of titleless muscle cars in my area that nobody would ever do a search on since these cars often have a very shady history.I have heard of 67's being made into 68's to fit the new title they were being fitted with,as well as at least one hardtop that is sporting a title and tag from a convertable.These guys dont care as long as the DMV will give them plates for it so they can drive it on the street.So in reality,a large number of supercars were tampered with years ago,and this isnt a problem that has surfaced recently.
Another issue is how some municipalities handle impounded cars and such.I had a perfectly good 68 camaro pass thru may hands that was tagged.It turns out that the car was impounded for overdue parking fines in New Yorks city back in the 80;s,and since it was over 10 years old it was sold as a bulk bid for scrap to a local junkyard,and was declared junk and un titleable by the state.Too bad the car was an absolutley spotless and original car with every rust free panel painted in custom pearl paint,as well as with a 468 bigblock under the hood and dana 60 rear in it,and was a turnkey and certified 9 second show car.The city wanted it crushed because it was an abandoned car that was over 10 years old.The Junk man sold it to a local racer who tagged it with the numbers from a rusty 6 cylinder just so he would have a title,then sold it for $20,000.He simply admitted that it was a 6 cylinder that was converted into a drag car.Well as it turns out the rightful owner was in jail for a while and his storage garage pushed the car out onto the street without plates on it for lack of payment,and that is how it ended up in the pound.Old cars and tag jobs tend to go hand and hand,especially in an inner city enviornment.Cops dont look at tags on stuff over 10 years old around here,so there is a wide open market for bogus cars.But that is a whole different issue anyway.
If you think what I am saying is bad,wait another 20 years.I think as it stands right now just about 3/4 of all the 5.0 mustangs ever titled in the New York City area have been declared stolen.Now to you look at it you would never guess we had such a shortage of 5.0 mustangs around here,but the DMV records show a much higher concentration of 4 cylinder LX's around/As it turns out there also seem to be a lot more really shiny black and whistling 81 buick regals around then there are Grand Nationals.You would also be amazed at th quality of workmanship that has gone into converting a plain jane 82 firebird into a dead ringer for an 89 GTA,right down to the leather seats and the 350tpi driveline.You really cant tell the differance
