benny_toe wrote:
Congratulations Ron! Hope it wasn't too traumatic of an experience. It is a milestone worthy of celebration.
Thanks Larry, not traumatic, but certainly frustrating in the beginning. Questions/statements from the DMV like…
"How can it be a replica if the frame doesn't have a VIN?"
"There's no bodywork covering the engine, so is it still a replica?"
"The engine VIN is riveted to the engine. I don't like that"
"I don't get into trailers" (I brought the car in an enclosed trailer)
"You need to prove to us it looks like a Lotus"
"This receipt doesn't state it's for the body"
"The receipt doesn't say it's for the frame"
"Show me again where you used the Miata frame"
And on and on for an HOUR, talking in circles. Showing pictures, showing them the car, explaining how it came to be. I don't think it's a stretch to say I got the two most ignorant DMV personnel in the entire state. It came down to them just staring at me. They didn't know what to do and they didn't know what to tell me to do.
The last straw, they tried to get me to write down the Miata's VIN on a title application for which I FLATLEY refused. At which point I got them to engage the manager (I hate being a Karen) and he at least had a suggestion and that was to refer me to the State Police for a VIN inspection. The idea being that the Police have the authority to recommend the DMV provide a VIN. Unfortunately that is appointment only so I had to wait another couple weeks.
Things got much better. I showed up for the VIN inspection and the officers were AWESOME. They knew what they were doing, understood what I was doing, knew what needed to be done, extremely helpful with answering questions, and they all loved the car - officers were coming over from other departments because they had heard about it.
One of the things I asked them about and got an interesting response, was "Who does the road worthiness inspection, lights, horn, etc?" The Trooper replied "We don't care about that. We only care about it when you're on the road and when we see something illegal we'll happily inform you then with a fix it ticket". Which makes a certain amount of sense after thinking about it for a moment.
They did about a 20 minute dig through their database, signed off the car with a handshake and a written recommendation to the DMV for a VIN. I headed straight back to the DMV, got the manager and had a much better conversation. He came out to the car, made one circle around it and said "Where do you want the VIN?"
Went back inside and he printed out a 90 day permit that says "1960 Lotus" (yes, that made me happy, as a matter of fact) and let me know the paperwork was off to Salem for processing and I'd receive tags and permanent plates in the mail.
I wish I could have gone to the police first, it would have been more efficient for all of us, but the catch is that you can't get a VIN inspection without a referral from the DMV, so I don't know how to cut that corner.
The one recommendation I would make to someone getting ready to go through this is to make a folder with just a FEW pages that are mostly pictures with single sentence explanations showing how you got from A to Z. In other words, I put together about 10 pages that started off with what an original 7 looks like, what it's bare frame looks like, what my bare frame looks like, a few progress pictures and a couple completion pictures. I brought this with me the on the second trip to the DMV and it most definitely helped them understand what I did, they even specifically thanked me for it and sent it to Salem with the rest of the paperwork.