I stumbled upon this this very recent, story which sadly is far from over. It hits on a number of points that are discussed on this board. The first that comes to mind is that pointing out all the flaws on on our e9's isn't always a a bad thing, partiularly with CSL's. This bus actually made way throught thesamba years ago and was torn apart by forum users. It surfaced again at auction years later after some freshening, and a poor guy paid $135K for it.
VIN fraud has been a major issue with desireable air cooled VW's and Porsche's. With values spiking in the E9 world, it isn't unlikely that we will see more falsified VIN's. This is unfortunately all too common, especially in the UK as I mentioned in a pervious post about a VIN tag for sale for $500. While I belive that auctions tend to cater to buyers that act on impulse rather than research, the thread below reiterates that it is ulimately the buyer's responsibility to validate the car.
Synopsis
VIN fraud has been a major issue with desireable air cooled VW's and Porsche's. With values spiking in the E9 world, it isn't unlikely that we will see more falsified VIN's. This is unfortunately all too common, especially in the UK as I mentioned in a pervious post about a VIN tag for sale for $500. While I belive that auctions tend to cater to buyers that act on impulse rather than research, the thread below reiterates that it is ulimately the buyer's responsibility to validate the car.
Synopsis
- Guy buys 23 window bus at Mecum for $135K - Notes the missing tag in the engine
- Forum points out a few oddities, asks for more pics
- Forum discovers Frankenstein grafting of parts from various years
- Forum discovers bus is basically two vehicles welded in half
- Forum questions vin stamping
- Some forum members make "if it looks like a duck" argument
- Some forum members explain the concept of fraud
- Birth certificate provided with sale is now suspsect, missing watermarks and security stripe, signature may be scanned, not hand written
