Buying/Selling Firewall Tags......

[DSYenko]

If Dick Wad has a bad disease that will render all his vital organs useless in the next 6 months and Richard Wadsworth was in a fatel car accident and was wearing a donar card and all his vital organs were donated to Dick Wad,,,,,,he's still Dick Wad!

[Verne_Frantz]

DS,
Again, from my point of view, the trim tag is NOT a vital organ or a replacement part to make the new "body" complete. When Wadsworth donates his vital organs to Wad to keep him alive, yes, he's still Wad, and still has his original birth certificate - even if he has new "guts".
But if Wad dies, his birth certificate goes on file, marked deceased. It doesn't get attached to someone else.

I also have a hard time accepting re-bodied cars. I don't think the entire body was meant to be a replaceable part either. I know it's done all the time when an original body and/or frame is too far gone for restoration, but I feel uncomfortable calling the resulting car "restored". "Re-created", yes. But that word gives me the same sensation as scraping my fingernails on a chauk board.

Verne

[DarrenX33]

I think I am going to start buying fake trim tags. Bang them a few times with a hammer, chew up the holes a bit and spray them black. Then I will list them on ebay.

[resto4u]

It must depend on the value of the car as how people feel about this. Also if your the one getting ripped off or doing so. Rememeber there is a ZL-1 that has had major surgery. That car may only have about 20%-30% of the factory original parts from day one. And has not really affected it's value. Point being, that they saved the vin# and cowl tag. No switching. How many corvettes have new tags, just for a color change.

[Verne_Frantz]

Resto,
I do believe that most of the repro tags I've noticed ('58-'64) have been for just that - a color and/or trim change. Although the tag makers claim to "have all the codes", I am positive they do not. Luckily, for my segment of the hobby, there is a lot of confusion concerning the cryptic accessory codes. In those 7 years of production, there were 15 different assembly plants pushing out those cars, and most had their own unique coding method. Not only that, but most plants changed their own coding methods as the years went by.
So, even if someone discovers what one code means at one plant, if he applied that code to a car from another plant via a new tag, it would stand out like a sore thumb. I've seen repro tags on restored cars that had option codes that did not agree at all with the equipment on the car.

Verne