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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ vin question
Posted by: drifter914 Jun 29 2019, 05:27 PM
Hi Guys... I bought a '74 914 with Indiana title showing the same vin as on the windshield frame tag & the tag riveted to passenger side front wheelwell. Both of these tags are easily replaceable.
The vin sticker inside driver door jamb is missing & the number stamped on top of pass. wheelwell has been ground off ... gone !
The number stamped inside rear trunk floor on pass. side is a different number & is only 7 digits. Should this number be the same as vin ?
So... so do I have a vin swap situation here... ?
I can understand maybe removing the sticker inside the driver door jamb for a repaint, but to grind off the number stamped into the metal on top of front pass. wheelwell seems very intentional & for what purpose ?
Is the number stamped inside rear trunk floor supposed to match vin on title ?
Not completely sure what I have here... possible vin swap ?
I feel the number in rear trunk floor may be key to solution. 
What say you ...
Thanks... Terry in Az
Posted by: mepstein Jun 29 2019, 05:58 PM
The trunk number is not a vin.
I would have checked before you purchased but now that you have the car, what are your plans.
Posted by: Rob-O Jun 29 2019, 06:25 PM
I’d check for prior damage on the passenger front fender. May not be a VIN swap. Could just be a replaced fender.
The rear trunk number is the chassis number. Usually the underside of the dash has the vin and the color written on it in a yellow or white paint type marker. It’s on the actual dash frame so it may be difficult or impossible to see all of the info from just lying under the dash and looking up. That’s because the dash frame sits on a part of the firewall that juts put into the passenger cabin.
Unless there is something that would’ve made the car unique (and in ‘74 the only thing would’ve been a ‘Bumblebee’ or a ‘Creamsicle’, I’d say just a replaced fender and then a repaint (which removes the compliance sticker in the door jamb).
What type of engine? What is the VIN? We can tell if it fits in the range of those special edition vehicles.
Posted by: drifter914 Jun 29 2019, 07:25 PM
The trunk number is not a vin.
I would have checked before you purchased but now that you have the car, what are your plans.
Plans...? Well, my plan was to start sorting this car out... it's a rust free 914 w/ alloys, front / rear sway bars, ivory white, all new tan interior. PO stated it was originally a 2.0 but he cracked the case & replaced it with a 1.7 case & built a 2200 using a kit & the 2.0 heads. So... not #'s matching, but a very nice 914.
My primary concern at this point is the possibility it was stolen at some point & the windshield & right front wheelwell tags used along with the title off a wrecked car to re-sell.
Any way to tell if it was a stolen vehicle... aside from removing the dash ?
Thanks ... Terry
Posted by: drifter914 Jun 29 2019, 07:42 PM
I’d check for prior damage on the passenger front fender. May not be a VIN swap. Could just be a replaced fender.
The rear trunk number is the chassis number. Usually the underside of the dash has the vin and the color written on it in a yellow or white paint type marker. It’s on the actual dash frame so it may be difficult or impossible to see all of the info from just lying under the dash and looking up. That’s because the dash frame sits on a part of the firewall that juts put into the passenger cabin.
Unless there is something that would’ve made the car unique (and in ‘74 the only thing would’ve been a ‘Bumblebee’ or a ‘Creamsicle’, I’d say just a replaced fender and then a repaint (which removes the compliance sticker in the door jamb).
What type of engine? What is the VIN? We can tell if it fits in the range of those special edition vehicles.
Hmmm... just checked, & paint code plaque has been removed as well !
No indications it was ever an LE car.
vin is 472902235
Would a replacement fender have a blank space where the vin is usually stamped ?
Most 914's have been repainted by now, & all I've seen still have the vin decal in the driver's door jamb. I think removing one to paint the jamb would be highly unusual, when you can simply mask it off.
Thanks for the input... Terry
Posted by: Larmo63 Jun 29 2019, 10:16 PM
Your car has probably had surgery at some point. Losing the door sticker is common and a new one can be obtained.
I wouldn't worry too much, you have two of the important markers.
Posted by: 914 RZ-1 Jun 29 2019, 10:40 PM
IIRC, the 7-digit trunk number is the chassis number. There is a decoder on this site. That will tell you when the car was made. It should coincide with the VIN you have. For example my car has a VIN code and chassis number that indicate it was made in Feb of 1972.
My window VIN was cut off and my door sticker was messed up. I got new ones. I had the VIN on the fender and on the plate in the frunk so I had confidence in the numbers matching. I also left the paint code tag off since I painted my car a non-standard color.
If you can, post a picture of the ground-off VIN on the fender well.
Posted by: porschetub Jun 30 2019, 03:20 AM
Front clip done maybe,if you have title you should be ok ? different rules in my country ALL numbers must be there.
You say the inner fender numbers are ground off ? can't be done as they are depressed number indentations...maybe they have been filled over my guess anyway.
Posted by: dlee6204 Jun 30 2019, 04:04 AM
What makes the car a 74? The vin you posted is from a ’72. The chassis code will tell you the day of production but it will not confirm the year.
Sounds like a vin swap to me. Sometimes one can also determine the vin by removing the paint/undercoating inside the wheel well. Since the numbers were punched there might be a vague outline on the backside of the panel.
Posted by: Rob-O Jun 30 2019, 06:11 AM
What makes the car a 74? The vin you posted is from a ’72. The chassis code will tell you the day of production but it will not confirm the year.
Sounds like a vin swap to me. Sometimes one can also determine the vin by removing the paint/undercoating inside the wheel well. Since the numbers were punched there might be a vague outline on the backside of the panel.
I think he just left out a ‘4’. A ‘72 would we 472290xxxx. He typed 47290, so he obviously left out a number for either the year or the first digit of the ‘290’ portion. I’d guess it’s the year.
By the way, I removed my compliance sticker when I repainted. Nice to have it there but when I had my car inspected by the police here in Texas (was my car, then purchased by a friend who imported it to Canada and then purchased back by me and reimported to the US), the officer conducting the inspection said his booklet didn’t specify the compliance sticker as an official VIN location. Makes sense, really. It is a sticker after all and easily removed.
Posted by: Chi-town Jun 30 2019, 08:48 AM
You can order the sticker and the Karmann tag from car-bone.pl
He takes forever but does nice work.
The rh when wheel well Vin you can buy the stamps and put it back in the steel.
Posted by: IronHillRestorations Jun 30 2019, 08:59 AM
Pics really
would help
Posted by: SirAndy Jun 30 2019, 09:00 AM
You should be able to tell if the VIN on the fender was ground off or if it is a replacement fender that never had a VIN stamped.
It takes a lot of grinding to make a VIN disappear ...
Posted by: SirAndy Jun 30 2019, 09:02 AM
Is this the car?
Posted by: FlacaProductions Jun 30 2019, 10:06 AM
I found the same thing - good detective work. This has to be it.
Posted by: mepstein Jun 30 2019, 10:48 AM
916 bumpers were often installed after a front end hit.
Posted by: Dave_Darling Jun 30 2019, 05:51 PM
The VIN number seems to be missing the year designation digit. It should be of the form "47x29sssss", where 47 means 914-4, x is the last digit of the model year, 29 means the Karmann plant, and sssss is the series number within the model year.
--DD
Posted by: drifter914 Jul 1 2019, 07:45 AM
You guys are great ! Lots of very helpful info here.
I'm trying to keep an open mind about this, but so far cannot confirm one way or the other if its stolen with vin swap / vin swap from totaled car... or simply a replaced front pass. fender & missing Karmen plate & door jamb sticker.
Dave... I sanded re-spray off of space on inner pass. fender where number should be stamped, right down thru grey primer to bare metal & can see no sign or trace of any numbers. This may very well be a replacement fender.
Other than finding a vin under the dash, which is not readily apparent (haven't removed glove box & dropped fuse panel yet), I can think of no other way to confirm this is an original numbers car.
Circumstantial evidence has never been absolute proof of fact.
Yes... I did leave the 4 out of the vin, that number occasionally sticks on my laptop... probably popcorn or munchies crumb of some sort.
Vin is 4742902235
Does that fall in the LE range ? Just fishing...
Thanks youse guys !
Terry
Posted by: JeffBowlsby Jul 1 2019, 08:20 AM
Not an LE.
Posted by: drifter914 Jul 1 2019, 08:25 AM
Is this the car?
Yep, that's the car... I also looked it up in the registry, but didn't see who the owner was, just that it sold on e-bay I 2009. Did I miss something? Here it is today after I lost the 916 front & returned it nearly to stock front end.
Posted by: 914werke Jul 1 2019, 10:37 AM
Just to be perfectly clear that stamp is on the inner wheel housing not the fender.
Fender's were commonly replaced due to shunts but to replace the whole inner wheel house where the VIN stamp is located is less common & a pretty big job. More likely sectioned so you might need to expand your sanding to find any evidence of welding seams
Posted by: Literati914 Jul 1 2019, 11:11 AM
To me it seems obvious that there would have been a front end collision, where the owner had the front clip replaced. Not a big deal if the work was done correctly. I've had two 914's with this done to them (before I got 'em)... one the body shop was smart enough to retain/integrate the original numbers on the passenger's inner wheel well (I sold that one for other reasons), and one that shows the numbers from the donor car 
- and this is the car I'm keeping/restoring at the moment. It's pretty common and people advertise/sell front clips all the time from parts cars, on this site. I could see an owner and/or body shop thinking the best course of action is to grind down the newly added numbers, than to leave them.
BTW - what is the proper protocol in this circumstance?
Posted by: drifter914 Jul 1 2019, 05:50 PM
To me it seems obvious that there would have been a front end collision, where the owner had the front clip replaced. Not a big deal if the work was done correctly. I've had two 914's with this done to them (before I got 'em)... one the body shop was smart enough to retain/integrate the original numbers on the passenger's inner wheel well (I sold that one for other reasons), and one that shows the numbers from the donor car
- and this is the car I'm keeping/restoring at the moment. It's pretty common and people advertise/sell front clips all the time from parts cars, on this site. I could see an owner and/or body shop thinking the best course of action is to grind down the newly added numbers, than to leave them.BTW - what is the proper protocol in this circumstance?
If the inner wheel well was added from a donor car you wouldn't leave the stamped number, it would differ from the vin of the car being repaired. You could grind it off, and stamp matching vin in that space, or leave it blank... which appears what happened to mine.
Or... if replaced back when, when NOS body parts were available from dealer, wouldn't that space be blank ?
Still seems to me that I need to find that vin that was marked on underside of dash somewhere. Was it in the same spot on all chassis... or just randomly marked ?
Worst case scenario here... I've got a great parts car !
Posted by: mepstein Jul 1 2019, 06:02 PM
It all depends how picky your location is about VIN numbers. In my case, there are no inspections for antique cars and I just fill out the form and send it in. One of my cars has been missing a fender vin for 35 years. I'm never selling the car so as long as I can drive it, I don't care about the VIN. If you plan to sell it, disclose the issue with the buyer and go from there.
I did buy one car that I was concerned about the background. I gave the vin to a trooper friend of mine to run a search. He said nothing came back on the vin so I don't see any issues for the car in the future.
Posted by: drifter914 Jul 2 2019, 06:58 AM
It all depends how picky your location is about VIN numbers. In my case, there are no inspections for antique cars and I just fill out the form and send it in. One of my cars has been missing a fender vin for 35 years. I'm never selling the car so as long as I can drive it, I don't care about the VIN. If you plan to sell it, disclose the issue with the buyer and go from there.
I did buy one car that I was concerned about the background. I gave the vin to a trooper friend of mine to run a search. He said nothing came back on the vin so I don't see any issues for the car in the future.
Thanks Mark... I'm going to drop the fuse panel & remove glove box, then get upside down with a good light & look under dash. If I don't find anything there I'll in
ask my deputy neighbor to run the vin & see if anything comes up. If not, then I'll just forget it & continue with the project...
Thanks... Terry
Posted by: mepstein Jul 2 2019, 07:09 AM
It all depends how picky your location is about VIN numbers. In my case, there are no inspections for antique cars and I just fill out the form and send it in. One of my cars has been missing a fender vin for 35 years. I'm never selling the car so as long as I can drive it, I don't care about the VIN. If you plan to sell it, disclose the issue with the buyer and go from there.
I did buy one car that I was concerned about the background. I gave the vin to a trooper friend of mine to run a search. He said nothing came back on the vin so I don't see any issues for the car in the future.
Thanks Mark... I'm going to drop the fuse panel & remove glove box, then get upside down with a good light & look under dash. If I don't find anything there I'll in
ask my deputy neighbor to run the vin & see if anything comes up. If not, then I'll just forget it & continue with the project...
Thanks... Terry
I wouldn’t drop the glove box. If you pm me your email or phone, I’ll send you a pic of the vin on the underside of a spare dash I have. Then you can just crawl in on your back and take a look at yours.
2 of my cars don’t have the door jam vin sticker. Never an issue here. Remember, years ago, these were just sporty VW’s.
Posted by: FlacaProductions Jul 2 2019, 08:54 AM
My doorjamb sticker is original and has two numbers transposed. It's been talked about here so it's "documented" but my other VIN/chassis numbers all match up so I'm fine with it. I've thought about getting a repro sticker done but nah...I think it adds character and hasn't been an issue with registration - they never even looked at the sticker.
Posted by: bbrock Jul 2 2019, 09:03 AM
I've thought about getting a repro sticker done but nah...I think it adds character and hasn't been an issue with registration
Those kinds of things tell the unique stories of these cars.Posted by: pgollender Jul 3 2019, 12:02 AM
Drifter, if fender is original, the stamped VIN numbers will appear in mirror order on the INSIDE of the fender well. Use a small amount of paint remover and nylon scrub brush, and then use some aluminum foil and trace the hell out of it with your finger. It may take several tries to get a nice tracing. That is how I recovered by VIN.
Posted by: SirAndy Jul 3 2019, 12:20 PM
Interesting ...
Posted by: mepstein Jul 6 2019, 11:35 AM
I thought about this a bit and remembered, unlike 911’s, 914’s don’t have a vin under the dash. They do have a written number but it does not correspond to the vin. The metal dash was often painted a different color since it was attached to whatever car was going down the line.
Posted by: Dave_Darling Jul 7 2019, 10:01 AM
The number on the back of the dash is the chassis number, which is different from (and only semi related to) the VIN. At least, on four-cylinder cars this is the case. Not sure about the Sixes.
--DD
Posted by: Jim C Oct 21 2019, 12:26 PM
I can't find a chassis number in the rear trunk of my 1976 914 2.0. It doesn't look like the trunk floor was replaced and there is no rust elsewhere that makes this likely. Thoughts?
Posted by: dr914@autoatlanta.com Oct 21 2019, 12:54 PM
I can't find a chassis number in the rear trunk of my 1976 914 2.0. It doesn't look like the trunk floor was replaced and there is no rust elsewhere that makes this likely. Thoughts?
I have actually never seen a Karmann number stamped into the rear trunk of any 75 76 model
Posted by: Jim C Oct 21 2019, 01:04 PM
I can't find a chassis number in the rear trunk of my 1976 914 2.0. It doesn't look like the trunk floor was replaced and there is no rust elsewhere that makes this likely. Thoughts?
I have actually never seen a Karmann number stamped into the rear trunk of any 75 76 model
Thanks. The info I'd seen didn't differentiate between years. I assumed all the cars were stamped in the trunk. I'll stop looking now.
Posted by: 914werke Oct 21 2019, 01:49 PM
Remember that the location/area where that stamping did exist on the earlier chassis is substantially different on the late cars with their bumper shock mounted below.
Posted by: sixnotfour Oct 21 2019, 02:24 PM
Remember that the location/area where that stamping did exist on the earlier chassis is substantially different on the late cars with their bumper shock mounted below.
its a blk tag riveted to the right frnt bumper support rail..
Posted by: JeffBowlsby Oct 21 2019, 03:13 PM
its a blk tag riveted to the right frnt bumper support rail..
Attached image(s)
Posted by: Jim C Oct 22 2020, 12:41 PM
Do the 1976 models have a chassis ID tag riveted to the frunk bulkhead? Mine has rivet holes but no tag. I have seen different sources say tag on bulkhead through '75 and others that say 1975 and '76. What's the definitive answer?
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