[Cobra20646]

There has been much talk about what these title services can and cannot do.

First and formost.... they cannot make your kit car a 1965 or whatever you "want" it to be..... legally

That's not to say that you can't "trick" them into supplying you with a '65 title for a car you just built in your garage.

In most cases, you are dealing with a state that is a "non-title state" for cars over 20 or 25 years old. What this means, is these states do not issue titles for these vehicles. Just the bill of sale and vehicle registration is enough to satisfy their law. Because most states honor other states laws, when you bring one of these registered cars to your home state, they will accept the other states documention and issue a title for the vehicle.

When you make application for their service, you are stating that you OWN a 1965 vehicle (or whatever year it is) that has a serial/VIN or ????? and that somehow the vehicle title has become lost/misplaced. Like your recently dead Uncle leaves you his 53 Hudson and you can't find the title. What happens then, is you SELL the car to the title service, who registers the car in their state, and they RE-SELL the car back to you with the required paperwork so you can get a clear title in your state. The car never leaves your garage, just the paperwork moves back and forth. They say it's legal..... so long as YOU are truthful with the info you supply in their application.

The brown stuff hits the fan when you BS these folks and send them bogus info that says that you have a 1965 cobra with a serial number of ?????? (that you stamped in the frame yourself) and you need a title 'cause the original one got lost. They will take your money, issue a registration and bill of sale for what you say you got, and then you take it to your local DMV for a title. If all goes well, your home free..... almost.... because many states are now looking into these cases and revokeing titles that were obtained this way.

Title companies are taking the heat for a lot of this, but only because they "believed" the person making application was telling them the truth........ although I beleive they really knew what was going on, they still played along, believing that if any fraud was brought up, they could point the finger at the applicant and say they only acted on the belief that the info supplied was truthful and accurate. Time will tell how long these companies will stay in business.