The Numbers Game

[Here are our real-life examples: the destroyed “real” muscle car on the trailer and the new “fake Road Runner” in the foreground.

- David Freiburger

Here’s a hot-rodding conundrum that involves what I perceive to be either hypocrisy or a change in moral standards: VIN swapping. Now, I know that moving vehicle identification numbers from one car to another is technically a federal crime. But these days, I kinda wonder what defines “car” in the realm of total restorations.

During the muscle car boom of the 1980s, it was universally accepted that you were the lowest of life forms if you did something like putting a Duster 340 VIN tag onto a factory six-cylinder car—and you would certainly fry in hell for any Hemi-car VIN shenanigans.