Removing and replacing trim tags

Question:

In the December 2007 issue reader Don Bollard wrote in concerning the data tags that had been removed from his GTO before it was chemically stripped. A company called Trim Tags in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, (www.trimtags.com) carries the large rivets that the factory used to fasten the data tag to the firewall. These are different from the rosette head rivets used to fasten the VIN tag to the vehicle.

Trim Tags used to carry the rosette rivets at one time, but I no longer see them offered on their Web site. I’m not familiar with the two sources listed in your answer to Mr. Bollard’s question but having a third option never hurts.

I have always understood that federal law prohibits the removal of a VIN tag from an automobile. If that is true, I wonder how one legally goes about repairing a damaged door pillar where the tag is attached to it. I know that it is common for the windshield frame pillars to rust badly on 1968-82 Corvettes. I know of one instance where the VIN tag and part of the pillar was cut out, the pillar replaced and the tag and pillar piece were welded back into the replacement pillar. If anyone has any insight into what can be legally done in such a case I would be interested in hearing about it.

Answer:

Thank you for the information about the additional source for correct trim tag rivets. The question of the legality of doing anything to or with your car’s VIN tag is actually more complex than most people realize. There is applicable federal law and there also is relevant state law in most jurisdictions. The legality will obviously often depend upon exactly what it is you want to do.

In some places, the issue of intent is also important in determining the legality of an action. For example, if you remove and reinstall a VIN tag with the intent of misrepresenting the vehicle that can be quite different from removing and reinstalling the tag with the intent of replacing a section of the windshield frame that is rotted.

There is also plenty that is subject to interpretation and in a “gray” area. For example, will the law look at it differently if you leave the rivets intact but cut out the small section of the windshield frame the tag is riveted to and transfer that over to a new windshield frame, or if you transfer the entire cowl, including the windshield frame with the tag riveted to it, onto another body?

This sort of thing sometimes comes down to a question of where one car ends and another starts.

Just about everyone would agree that if you take an all-original body and replace a fender the body is still the “original” body. But what if you take the cowl section, with the tag still attached to it, and replace everything else (front fenders, inner wells, doors, floor, rear quarters, rear inner wells, top deck, roof, tail lamp panel, etc.)? What if you replace all of the exterior body panels but not the underlying structures? What if you replace all of the front end body panels but not the rear, or vice versa?