I dunno. But those loose Roll bars, 67 specific steering wheels, original under dash gauges come from somewhere to be on Ebay so much.
I know that car #2299 was stolen from the original owner in his driveway. He had owned it for about four years then. It was found cut up in pieces. Car was cut up for the running gear and sold off. Randy
Just out of curiosity how do you guys know which cars, and even more interestingly, the serial number of cars that are unaccounted for? Also was car #2299 a 350 or 500?
How do we know? Those would be the cars that we don't have owners register for. #2299 was a Brittany Blue 4 speed GT350
Well, the response "hints at" a possible choice of: I just want to know, and, I'll just take one of these Vin numbers and make it appear. First thing, it's a Federal offense. Might get you jail time. There is a whole lot to read about this a www.boss302.com. Ok, let's say you overlook that, built a 'air car" with one of these numbers, well, what about the Ford Vin? That has to match what Shelby American ordered to be converted to a Shelby also. And, all of us have already seen a couple of home built Shelbys. Some owners mistakenly take the last number made and add one number, others take one of the Shelby repop Vin plates, and stamp some number on it, rivet it down over the Ford Vin. How about just cutting out a rectangle, and placing that over the Ford vin, so ALL can see the Ford Vin originally put there by Ford.
I sense a lot of hostility with the last reply. I am honestly just curious to what happened to the unaccounted cars and how people know what happened to them, i.e stolen and chopped up, or wrapped around a pole.
Sorry, but I've been around long enough to have my "early warning" up. Some bad guys come fishing here for information too. I'd say many of the ones (not many) that get "disappeared" lately are known, and reported. It's those ones from the 60's, and 70's that go unaccounted for. At that time, the Vin number (the Shelby vin) was not that big of a deal. And, there wasn't even a registry. So, if some owner wrapped the car around some tree, well, the insurance paid off, and the owner went and got himself another car. At the time, most owners never gave remembering the vin a second thought. Now, for instance, some long time SAAC members will remember the 67 that "flew" into a house. The photo was in a Shelby American. The caption never did say what that car number was, or if it was totalled or not. The car was all the way in, except for the trunk. I believe it was somewhere (the house and photo) in New York state.
The other part of my question on the cars that go unaccounted for, is how many do you think are in like Montana for instance with an 80 year old owner that never became part of the registry but still has the car, typa thing?
SO not just in Montana but how about the Silicon Valley? I lived there until 2006. There is a little sleepy town called Portola Valley right next to Stanford University. My boss buys a house and in the garage of the guy who died is his 1965 Gt350 unrestored with three tarps and some furniture stacked on it. The kids took the car and said they were gonna keep it. They never returned my calls etc.. I tried but I think there are still A LOT of cars sitting in storage lockers, garages etc.. We have not seen the last barn find
It's hard to hazard a guess to that. Some people are well aware of the registry. And yet, do not wish to even supply the minimal amount of information such as car number, owned by a person who wishes to remain anonomous. They have their reasons. My guess is probably about 2/3's of those "whereabouts unknown" cars are in somebodys hands. The junkyard owner who loves chatting to all those folks who want to buy it. The owners who don't care about the registry. The guys who are "going to fix it up someday", to their kids who roll the thing over to their garage after dads funeral. That leaves a rough guess by me of about 1/3 of those "O-U" cars are gone forever. Maybe. This is why I suggest, that when a responsible owner sells his car, he reports this to the SAAC registrar. It only pushes the ownership trail one step farther. But, you just can't count on the next owner to report to the registrar that they now own that car. Often it's one of those "when I get around to it" things they never get around to.