Speaking of VIN tags and lost titles...what's your story?

[32 Chevy]

My story concerns the 56 ranchwagon..... I stumbled across it when I was at a farm in Nebraska on a hunting trip. Not being known a a real smart feller, it thought that the abandoned wreck had potential and asked the farmer if he would sell it. He said he probably should'nt, it wasnt really his because it was just abandoned on the road in front of the farm about 15 years earlier. After 5 years or so he got tired of looking at it so dragged it to the farm's boneyard where his kid started to 'fix it up' and then lost interest. Of course there was no title but I talked him into writing a bill of sale and I flatbedded the car home to Washington state

Fast forward 2 years later and the car is almost ready to run, so I think maybe I should get it registered. I take the bill of sale and a photo to the Washington DMV and they just laugh. "You need a title, or a letter from the State of Nebraska stating the car has been released as abandoned by the previous owner"!

So, I call the Nebraska DMV with the VIN numbers. Naturally, I start with the big DMV office in Omaha and get a buracratic runaround. Then I call The only DMV in rural southwest Nebraska, and explain my problem to the nice concerned lady on the other end of the phone. She says she can't help me replace the title because the records are incomplete...but she can and does give me the name of the last registered owner.

Next on the agenda is to call information for every small town in Nebraska asking for that name. FInally, a dozen calls later, I get the same last name but with a lady's first name. I take a chance and call anyway, asking for 'gary'.
A nice grandmotherly sounding woman answers the phone and I explain my situation. She says she wishes she could help but never heard of the car or 'gary. Just about to hang up,  she says,  her son's middle name is gary! But, she says, he's not around anymore anyway. So, says I, do you know where he is? She says,he's moved to Mississippi. Can I have his number?

I call gary in Missippi, and he about hits the ceiling! He says he has been looking for that car ever since he loaned it to his good-for-nothing brother in law 20 years ago. *, I loved that car, he says.... now I'm becoming worried that he will take the car back, because legally he owns it!

But when I tell him my story of how I brought the car back from the grave and put all sorts of nice modern goodies in it, he gets reflective and thanks me for saving it from rusting away. He called the Nebraska DMV, had a new replacement title issued, signed it over to me, and sent it registered mail. All he asked in return was a photo or two.

What's your story?

[enjenjo]

A close friend bought a 64 Rambler 440 Classic several years ago, basically a sound car, but it needed some tinkering. With it he got an ohio title, signed off and notarized. So he proceeded to rebuild and repair stuff as needed. When it was done, he had about $3000 in it. Took the title to the DMV to get it into his name, and low and behold, it had been reported stolen in 1983. Come to find out, it was stolen with the title in the glove box, and had been sold several times, but no one tranfered it to their name. The rightful owner was contacted, and he wanted the car back. but he was so overjoyed to get it, he paid my buddy for all the work he had put into the car. He was extremely lucky.

Back in the mid 70's, I bought a 68 Buick Lesabre from a guy at work, really clean car, with a bad engine. It was on Alabama paperwork, and when I went to tranfer it, he had not signed off properly. This was on friday, I called and he told me to come over monday, and he would fix me up. Monday afternoon, I stopped at his place, knocked on the door, and asked his wife for him. He was dead. Saturday night, he had been drinking, and rolled his car into a ditch and drowned. Never was able to title it, ended up stripping it for parts and crushing the rest.

[GPster]

Back in the early '70s a friend that owns a junkyard was given a pile of cars on a farm by another junk yard ( his wife's uncle ) because the clean-up was out of their realm. There was a Model A sedan body and chassis in this lot and I traded weekends of work in the junkyard for this. But loe it never appeared. The uncle's realm did include taking the only valuable piece out of the field and it dissapeared. With all this labor to my credit my friend tried to make it right and offer me a '53 studebaker champion that had been disassembled for re-build. I took the body and rolling chassis and made numerous trips to the junk-yard with the numerous parts that were in the cashe from numerous wrecks that been parted out for the previous owners completion of the project. All of this stuff had been stored in the garage of a house the guy was renting and when he bought his family a house that had no garage he just left all the stuff there. I started building because I was assured a title would appear. Back in that era when they had a demolition derby at the fairgrounds all the junkyards would be present at the close to tow away the loosers. My buddy was there and a '55 DeSoto was part of the junk so the little Hemi became mine. Started gathering pieces together and after a while started worring about the title that had not appeared yet. Looked up the guy that had owned the car and yes there was a title and he would sign it over. One little glitch, it was a Texas title. The numbers didn't match anythingthat was on the body and I came to find out that Texas had used the engine number. When I got it there was no engine. To make matters more confussing the guy had changed the original engine for an Oldsmobile engine and had had the numbers changed to make the title correct so the Olds number didn't even reflect anything Studebaker. And he had taken the car with him from Texas to Fort Polk, Louiseanna (sp sorry)where he sold the Olds engine out of it and brought the body with him to Ohio. I had no bill or anything with the number of the Ohio DeSoto Hemi and even the car title wouldn't have helped because Ohio Titles had gone the body numbers on their titles years before "55. The original owner signed the Texas title and then had to sign an affidavit that the car hadn't been on the road all the years so that he wouldn't be charged for years of license plates. I had a Texas title in my name and had to apply for a motor change to get the numbers changed to something Ohio could use to make an Ohio title, so I had to make a tracing of the motor numbers and send them to Texas to get that bit of paperwork done. Texas didn't want to do all of this stuff for a car that wasn't going to be licensed in there state so I had to buy Texas plates. The first time it was stopped by the Highway Patrol it was because they wanted to find out why it had Texas plates. Luckily it was still with-in the 30 days I had to transfer the car to an Ohio title. GPster

[Flipper]

I am about to embark on trying to get one of my Seagraves titled.......I have to track down a previous owner and get them to send for a lost title.  A bill of sale doesn't do anything in KY.