I received a PM from a person wanting to purchase anything off of a car I scrapped that had a sticker or tag claiming that was all he needed to reproduce the car. We've discussed this on the forum and concur it may very well be a federal offense. The act of vin swapping and forging a title and tags is one thing. Selling a special car to someone else without disclosing the fact that the only real part is the federal emission tag is not only illegal but highly unethical. My caution is not only to beware who you sell to but also who you buy from.

Rick,
You are correct, both federal and state offenses. We had a hot rod builder here in Ca named Boyd Coddington. He had employees travel the states looking for anything with an early VIN. It would be switched onto a $100,00 to $150,000 car he built, then registered for pennies. Remember Ca DMV charges on value of vehicle. When the government caught up with him, they gave financial immunity to customers that testified against him...

You are a good man Rick.

Had a guy ask me for vin tags to a bmw 2002 we are running as a race car.
Told him, no thats illegal.

100% Back in my youth when I knew a bunch of guys who were in to Triumph cars (including me), I knew of at least a couple of ringed cars. Disturbingly easy to do, no punched chassis numbers, just pop riveted tags

Sadly as the price of 914s rise I think we will see more of this as there is $$$ to be made (especially in the case of -6 s) and underlines the importance of things like the chassis database

the chassis database on 914 world is going to be very valuable as the values increase..never thought we would need documented history, so stop doing your own service. Gonna need proof