1940 Plymouth Road king P-9 Body Number

[Don St Peter]

I am a POC member and I I have owned my P9 since 1999 and restored it to original condition over the years with the help of many POC members. The car was clear titled to me when purchased in 1999 in Kansas, and title reissued to my Trust when I moved to Florida in 2003. I recently sold the car to another POC member who lives in California. SUPRISE.... in trying to title the car in California the buyer was informed the title search revealed the car was reported as stolen many many years back. The story thickens however I will try to keep a  long story short. I think I need to convince the police department that the body number on the fire proof plate on the engine side of the firewall, is the body number assigned by Chrysler. The body number is 2135042 and according to the build records I obtained when I started the restoration back in year 2000, matches the original engine number P9-345874. The police department reports that the body number is on the right front body hinge post and is 9079622. This is the number they used to do their search and ultimately used to determine it to be stolen. Currently, the Title shows the engine number P9-345874 as the VIN number. How/why this happened I have no idea. Can someone please help us ( buyer and I ) out in unravelling this mess?   

[knuckleharley]

12 hours ago, Don St Peter said:

I am a POC member and I I have owned my P9 since 1999 and restored it to original condition over the years with the help of many POC members. The car was clear titled to me when purchased in 1999 in Kansas, and title reissued to my Trust when I moved to Florida in 2003. I recently sold the car to another POC member who lives in California. SUPRISE.... in trying to title the car in California the buyer was informed the title search revealed the car was reported as stolen many many years back. The story thickens however I will try to keep a  long story short. I think I need to convince the police department that the body number on the fire proof plate on the engine side of the firewall, is the body number assigned by Chrysler. The body number is 2135042 and according to the build records I obtained when I started the restoration back in year 2000, matches the original engine number P9-345874. The police department reports that the body number is on the right front body hinge post and is 9079622. This is the number they used to do their search and ultimately used to determine it to be stolen. Currently, the Title shows the engine number P9-345874 as the VIN number. How/why this happened I have no idea. Can someone please help us ( buyer and I ) out in unravelling this mess?   

A-hole state inspectors that either don't know what they are doing,or who get off on making life difficult for antique car owners. I actually had one insisting I pull the radiator out of my all-original 51 Ford Victoria so he would see  the "secret number" stamped on the front crossmember. He wanted this because unlike the 49 and 50's that had the VIN number stamped on the driver's side of the firewall,the 51 had it stamped on the passenger side,and he didn't want to accept this. I even showed him the factory 51 Ford parts manual that stated on the 51's the vin number was on the passenger side,and had a photo showing it. Even that wasn't good enough,so I literally told him to kiss my big red ass because I was right,he was wrong,and I wasn't going to pull the radiator just to please him. I told him to go ahead and submit it,and that if I didn't get a clear title I would be driving to Raleigh to discuss this with his boss,and taking my factory parts manual with me.

 

This was the same asshat that had "lost" two other titles I gave him that had been notorized,causing me to have to get new NC vin numbers for those cars.

 

 

Guess what? I got a clear NC title back in the mail.

[Don St Peter]

Thanks for sharing your depressing experience. Well, the P-9 has been seized by the Ca. Highway Patrol pending an investigation by the Wichita Ks. police department, which is the place it was reported stolen back sometime prior to my purchase in July 2000 with a clear title issue to me prior to my 20 year restoration project. Guess We will see where this goes. Tx again

[sidevalvepete]

This is a sad story for you at the moment. I hope it works out ok.

[TodFitch]

I hope this works out too.

 

The “police department reports that the body number is on the right front body hinge post and is 9079622”. This is actually the official serial number from Chrysler and is about the same percentage of the way through the production run as the engine number you report as P9-345874.

 

It is unusual but not unheard of for a car to be registered with the body number located on the engine side of the firewall. The standard practice seemed to use either the engine number or serial number. And if the serial number has been reported stolen then I can see where the police are coming from.

[Eneto-55]

That's a sad story for sure.  People always say not to do any work on a car until you have title in hand, but you did that, basically trusting the "work" done by the Kansas Dept of Motor Vehicles back in 1999.  I gather from your story that the Kansas title listed the Body Tag Number, and not the Serial Number.  So the part that doesn't make sense to me is how the alleged theft got past the Kansas authorities back prior to 1999, except that whoever re-titled the vehicle back in Kansas must have used the Body Tag Number instead of the Serial Number, under which it must have been reported stolen.  AND, the Kansas DMV didn't verify it according to their own common practice. 

 

I know all of this what I've written is already stated here by others, but I'd like to know if someone knows what the accepted practice was in Kansas.  (Trying to compile a list of the common practice, state by state.)

Edited March 13, 2021 by Eneto-55

[JerseyHarold]

 You want to get the car out of there ASAP, and waiting for the bureaucracy to do its thing can take months.

 

For what it's worth  I'd get an attorney involved sooner than later.   If the car was seized by the state, it is accruing storage fees in whatever tow yard they parked it.  Plus, it will be treated like any other impounded car, which means it's subject to damage and vandalism.

Good luck!

[knuckleharley]

7 hours ago, Don St Peter said:

Thanks for sharing your depressing experience. Well, the P-9 has been seized by the Ca. Highway Patrol pending an investigation by the Wichita Ks. police department, which is the place it was reported stolen back sometime prior to my purchase in July 2000 with a clear title issue to me prior to my 20 year restoration project. Guess We will see where this goes. Tx again

I hope whoever seized it gave you a proper receipt for it that included the make,model,serial number,and the date they seized it and including the signature and position of the person who did seize it?

[knuckleharley]

2 hours ago, JerseyHarold said:

 You want to get the car out of there ASAP, and waiting for the bureaucracy to do its thing can take months.

 

For what it's worth  I'd get an attorney involved sooner than later.   If the car was seized by the state, it is accruing storage fees in whatever tow yard they parked it.  Plus, it will be treated like any other impounded car, which means it's subject to damage and vandalism.

Good luck!

What,you don't actually think some cop and his pal with a storage area would actually seize a car as stolen,store in in the pals storage yard for a year,and then get a title for it in one of their names as an abandoned vehicle due to the storage fees,do  you?

 

Why,I NEVA!........

 

Well,I did once. Had a local cop wake me up as I was sleeping in my tow caar at a closed gas station in Tn,and tell me to follow him to the station because he was arresting me for vagrancy. UNLESS,of course I would pay the $100 fine in cash on the spot,in which case he would let me go if I left the county immediately.

 

Well,I didn't have the spare 100 bucks to pay him. I was still in the army and had just gotten back from 3 years on Okinawa,and had to report in to Bragg in just a few days. I had no money to spare because while visting friends in Reno,I bought a 56 coupe de ville,and decided to "play Hud" driving cross-country,instead of just flying,like any sane person would do.

 

Along the way,I bought a 33 Plymouth 2dr  with a 324 Olds and hydro while doing a little partying in a little town in Arizona,and was towing it behind me. 

 

Stopped at a closed gas station just off the interestate in eastern TN,and was awakened by a cop tapping on my window with his flashlight. He announced that unless I gave him $100 in cash,he was going to arrest me for vagrancy. Since I didn't have 100 bucks to spare because I had just gotten back to the US ,and had decided to buy a 56 coupe de ville while .in Reno visiting a buddy teaching ROTC there. I had decided I wanted to drive cross country and "play Hud",instead of doing the sensible thing,and flying home.

 

Along the way,I stopped to spend a few days with a go-go dancer I happened to meet in Arizona,and bought a 33 Plymouth 2dr with a 324 Olds and Hydro in it,and had the 33 hooked to the Caddy with a tow bar.

 

The arrest happened on a Friday night,and I sat in a cell with the light burning 24/7 until 8 AM Monday morning,when he came to let me out before the Judge showed up. He also told me I had 30 minutes to get out of the county or he would arrest me again,but for car theft this time because I didn't have a notorized title for the Caddy in my name. The paperwork was still being processed in Reno.

.

When we got to the impound yard where the Caddy was,there was no 33 Plymouth OR tow bar,and I was told  by the impound yard people there was no record of a 33 Plymouth EVER even being there,and reminded once again the clock was ticking on my car theft arrest,which would have meant the army would charge me with desertion instead of AWOL because I had a TS Crypto clearance and was in SF. He didn't know that,but I did,so I had to bite my lip and drive off.

 

I did have big plans for that boy after a couple of years had passed and everyone had forgotten about me. Got out of the army after coming back from VN,and was working construction and trying to save some money for a trip I had planned,when by chance I discovere the house I was helping remodel belonged to a family from that same Tn town. So I asked them about "good old,Captain Bill,with the MP insignia on his tie",and they laughed and told me he was in prison. He made the mistake of stopping someone else with out of state tags and trying to pull the same scam on them,but the guy he pulled that time was the nephew of a powerful congressman in DC,and it didn't work out too well for him.

 

This stuff DOES happen.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by knuckleharley

[Don St Peter]

Update on my seized 1940 P-9. Luckily a friend of a friend personally knew the Wichita Kansas Police Chief. Once He got my written summary of events, He notified me that same day a detective had been assigned to the case on a priority basis.  The buyer of the car, who the California HP had seized it from, notified him the very next day that the car was available to be picked up. Two full weeks of exactly no movement on the matter, including a lawyer I employed. Moral of this story..... do not ever ever burn any friendship bridges.

Relieved in Fl. 

[greg g]

What's going to happen when he tries to submit the paperwork again.  Did he get something with the release telling Cali DMV it's OK?  What might happen when he or his estate try to sell it down the road?

 

[Don St Peter]

Car now titled and tagged in California. Tom ( the buyer) is finally driving his new purchase as We speak. End of story!