rebodied with out salvage a title

[SULLY]

Hi Guys. Thought I would jump in here.
I am a long time reader and first time poster.
I don't think we will ever be able to agree on what
constitutes a "rebody". The problem that we have on the
post about a certain car that was deleted is if this forum should allow people to post negative information about
someones car. Whether the info is true or untrue is NOT
the point the "damage has been done". People will remember
years later and question the car. That being said I should say (before someone else does) that I do own a 69 Yenko Camaro that was crashed in Nov of 71. The car was damaged down the right side along with severe cowl damage. It was repaired back then with some new sheet metal and a used door. The cowl and front floor were hammered out the best they could. When I bought the car almost 4 years ago I was well aware of the damage. After having several body and frame people look at it it was decided by me to replace the cowl along with most of the front floor. I also replaced the right 1/4 and outer wheelhouse as it had been brazed on. I found a donor car and had it done. It is documented by pictures. This is a 13,000 mile original engine car.
Do I have a Yenko? a Rebody? Several people on this board know this car and what has been done. I think it would be hard for me to sell this car without giving someone this information. It is only right. The car is now in it's final
assembly stage and I will post a picture soon.

Thanks..........Sully

[bbg]

I have been associated with paint and body work in NC for many years. Cars here are classified as "totaled" not so much by the amount of damage, but by the dollar cost to repair the vehicle. Several factors are considered such as the value of the vehicle per NADA, and the salvage value of the vehicle. If it is decided not to repair the vehicle, often the owner has the chance to buy the vehicle back and the title is unchanged. If it is sold as salvage the titles are turned in to the state. If it is then bought to be rebuilt it is inspected upon completion by the DMV and a salvage title is issued so the potential buyer is aware it was salvaged out. There are a lot of fairly new high end vehicles repaired with substantial damage though that is done so at the direction of the insurance company. It is about economics. What is the most cost effective solution. Insurance companies here can specify used parts which drastically reduces the actual repair costs. The better salvage yards here even inventory vehicles by color and often you can request a door, pickup truck bed, etc. in the color you need and surf the hotlines for yards until you find it. These are well run, quality yards that sell only quality parts with no or minimal damage. You don't wander around in these yards either. They no longer view their parts as junk, and do not want someone carelessly opening a door into another door and damaging it. Yes, you may have to paint the exterior of the door and blend it to the rest of the car, but you wont have to break it down to trim it out. Of course this is a substantial labor savings for the insurance company and actually gives you a better repair as it is an undisturbed original part with factory paint, noise deadeners, rust preventatives, etc. I personally would much rather have a good clean used door or fender as a new one. An example that comes to mind was a new Lincoln 2 door. It was hit hard in the rear end and nearly flat to the back glass. A rear clip was located in the same color and the car cut in half at the floor pan and the windshield post. The rear clip was perfect as received and when welded on the only paint needed was about a foot on the windshield posts and 2 feet on the rocker. The paint matched perfect. This car was repaired in 4 days and looked great. Granted it would be really great if it had not been hit, but I think this repair was much better than ordering the rear structure in pieces and building it back. Another was a pickup truck that was reframed. Try it. That is a job. I could go on and on but clipping is an accepted industry standard and heavy damage will be repaired if it is monetarily feasible, and industry standards regard the repair as safe if done by a reputable certified shop. As to how this relates to Camaros, the COPO, Yenko, ZL1, etc. were quite expensive when new and I think the majority of owners were of higher income and treated them with more respect than the 18 year old kid who bought a Z or a SS. There were no exotics here in our town. 302, 350, 396, yes. I don't remember any of the 69 camaros here that didn't have some damage to them at one time or another. As to now this is the rust belt and they have a lot of rust in the lower body. As I said earlier, granted I would like to have all my cars virgin, rustfree, never damaged time machines that I found in my grandmother's barn, but the reality of it is there are more that need repairs, and some of them extensive than there are survivors. I would rather have a clipped car myself with a super clip than one that had to have rockers, floors, trunk, wheel housings, quarters, tail panel, etc. but I hear no compaints about those. You talk about a quality construction issue - now you have one. If you put all this on a car would this not come close to the replacing half the car scenario mentioned earlier? Just some thoughts. You know you can repair them several times. Over and over if need be. You can redo them again later too as technology changes if you feel so led. But you can only throw them away once.

[Belair62]

Point well taken....sounds like hard work...what are your thoughts on tagging a car ?

[RichSchmidt]

It is all a scam.In New Jesey,there is no technical certification required to take someone's money to fix the mechanicals or the body damage on their car.80% of all the shops in my area have technicians with no credentials whatsoever{I worked in the busness for 10 years and made it to"A" tech without any training except airconditioning certification).All the local government cares about is that the shop has the right paperwork,and that only refers to having the shop in a properly zoned area and having any environmental issues taken care of{spraybooth if you want to paint and stuff like that}.Salvage titled cars can be repaired by any do it yourselfer in his back yard[but he cant charge somebody money for it},and if the state inspector feels the repairs are satisfactory,and no stolen parts were used the car will get a registerable title issued,but it will always bear the "S" to warn any future buyers.If a car isnt totaled by an insurance company,it doenst matter how bad the body damage is after an accident,there will be no official record of it.If the owner has only liabilty insurance on the car,and he wraps it around a tree and makes it into a horseshoe,and his cousin bubba fixes it by chaining it to the same tree and driving it backwards until the frame is straight and then hanging junkyard or stolen panels on the car and spraying shiny paint on it in his backyad,there will be no record of it,and the police dont even have to write an accident report if the owner doesnt want one.So a car that appears "virgin" could actually be the worst wreck of them all.What is really scary is that if such a car were ever in an accident later on,and the shoddy repairs caused a problem,the owner or repairman could just shrug it off and say,they dont know anything about it,and that the repairs must have been made by another owner at some other point in the car's life.
As for clipped cars,or rebodies,I tend to agree that from a restoration standpoint,a rebody might be more corect.If You find a Copo Camaro in a barn,and it is a 100% complete all numbers matching car that hasnt been driven in 30 years,but is rotted to death,would a future admirer of this car get a more accurate image of the car if it had welded on patch panels,and obvious signs of repair work,or would it be more correct if a clean rust free 307 powerd body were used which still wore all the original seamseal,and had all the original body fitment issues of an actual factory car?
I believe I posted once before about the 396 convertable Camaro that was on Ebay a few months ago.This car needed a front subframe,floors,inner and outer rockers,a tail panel,full 1/4's,inner and outer rear wheelhouses,and trunk floor and dropoffs,and was nothing more then a bare body shell and a complete numbers matching engine,but no other driveline parts.There will be no paper trail following tis car,and regardless of if it gets rebodied or gets the Goodmark book thown at it,somewhere down the line,this car will turn up as a pristine low mileage original on some vintage car trader's lot,and top dollar will be paid for it and nobody will be the wiser.It is the nature of the beast.
Here is one to get you all mad.A friend of mine works at BMW,and he fixes cars that are damaged during transport.He claims that hanging quarter panels and even roof skins on brand new cars before they go to the dealers is common place,and that the cars are sold as new and undamaged cars.He showed me one car with over 800 dents in it from a hailstorm while on the boat,and the shop employs a paintless dent removal expert who worked out every single dimple in that car{and it looked like a 2 ton golfball}without putting any paint on it,and the car was on it's way to a happy home after a 1 week delay in the body shop.A few years back another friend who works at a body shop showed me photos of a brenad new minivan that fell off a car carrier,and was brought to his independent shop to be fixed.They got paid $17,000 to replace every piece of sheet metal on this thing except one door frame,and about half of the floor.A new roof and roof structrue was added along with every pice of sheet metal,and a partial unibody,and this thing went on the dealer lot as a brand new vehicle.The same shop had him put a new frame under a pickup truck that was smashed when being used as a Demo,and it too was sold as an unrepaired vehicle with no record of the damage.So maybe that ZL1 camaro was rebodied by the dealer back in 1969?[yeah right}

[RichSchmidt]

Here is some other trival information on this subject.A car doesnt have to be damaged to be a repair liability.Did you know that doing simple things like adding bolt in frame connectors,traction bars,a strut tower brace or even a fiberglass hood to your car cant leave you open to lawsuits your insurance company dont cover?You may think nothing of buying a late model mustang,adding some frame connectors and a strut tower brace to it and thinking you did the world a favor.If you were to T-bone somebody with such a car and the crumple zones didnt crumple correctly,you could end up being in for a hard luck trip to the courthouse.If you are lucky,the damage will be limited to yourself and your insurance company not wanting to pay for your broken kneecaps,but if you fortifed hot rod were to plow into the side of somebody's car rather then crumple upon impact,you could be looking at loosing everything you own,even despite your million dollar liablity coverage.A good lawyer is going to look for a reason to hang you out to dry.When he sees those bright yellow slapper bars hanging under your springs,and he wants to know what they are for,and you tell him they help give the car more traction,and then he consults with an expert on how if they give a car better traction why dont all cars have them,and the expert tells him because slapper bars can cause the rear axle to lift under very hard breaking and cause the car to not stop straight,guess what he is going to look to pin the accident on.Not the little old lady who blew the light in front of you{his client}but rather on your super modified race car that was modifed in such a manner as to be unsafe for street use.
So with that said,there is a lot of potential liability in the automotive business.