Title Registration History

[65vettish]

With the privacy laws now in effect that restrict the release of previous owners' information by state vehicle registration agencies, does anyone know of a proven method of documenting the ownership history of a car?

[JohnZ]

LOTS of letters, phone calls, and persistence; no other way once you run up against the 5-10-year limit where most state DMV's throw all the old records away. The NCRS "Driveline" has an "Information Wanted" section where guys post their VIN and car description to see if anyone has any info on it - it's a long shot, but it's worth a try.

[Montana]

I ran into the same brick wall myself. I did uncover some clues in the stack of old receipts I got with my 65. Good luck

[1964*Coupe]

Originally Posted by 65vettish

With the privacy laws now in effect that restrict the release of previous owners' information by state vehicle registration agencies, does anyone know of a proven method of documenting the ownership history of a car?

I'm not sure if this an old wives tail or not but....
I heard that someone was trying to document his 67 Vette. So, he went to the DMV and could only trace it back 8 years... He decided to take the gas tank off to get to the sticker. Low and behold, he found that the VIN's didn't match.
He ended up calling the police, just to see why the docs didn't match. Well
to make a long story short, the car was stolen and someone had swapped the VIN#.
The police ended up conficating the car, the guy was out $18,000.
The right thing is returning the car to the proper owner, but losing the car, along with the money is just a killer....

[JohnZ]

The '67 tank sticker didn't have the car's VIN on it - that didn't start until 1971.

[65vettish]

Originally Posted by JohnZ

LOTS of letters, phone calls, and persistence; no other way once you run up against the 5-10-year limit where most state DMV's throw all the old records away. The NCRS "Driveline" has an "Information Wanted" section where guys post their VIN and car description to see if anyone has any info on it - it's a long shot, but it's worth a try.

Thanks for the tip. I posted my info at NCRS a few weeks ago but haven't heard anything. I know it's a long shot but you never know who might read the post. I found a branch of my family that way on a genealogy web site last year while working on my family history.

I have enough info to document the car back through several owners but thought there might be an easier way than the way I was going about it, which is, lots of phone calls, letters, etc.