Only one reason I can think of for why you would put a Skylark VIN on a GS400 and I'm sure the original owner would love to have the car back. Before you do anything, have the current owner do a VIN verification on the car. Depending on your state, this usually involves taking the car to the state patrol or having a local law enforcement officer come look at the car. They will look at the hidden VINs and compare to the VIN tag and run the hidden VIN through the stolen car database. My guess is it will come back as stolen. Based on the trim tag, the VIN of the car should be 446177Z11xxxx.
A couple of things to ask the current owner:
1. Where did they buy the car?
2. Did they get a good deal?
3. Was the seller eager to sell it?
why would you put the VIN tag for a LESS valuable car on a GS?
They probably used a Skylark VIN because that was likely the only title and VIN they had available from their buddy at the junk yard. It's close enough that most people probably wouldn't notice, especially if they were getting a good deal on the car. I occasionally help the police identify Buick cars they can't. I was helping one officer with a car that was clearly a 1964 with a late 1965 VIN. I told him I thought it was stolen, but he said that he ran the VIN and it came back clean. I was thinking, duh :clonk:, that's the way it works. Someone takes the clean title and VIN tag from a car that has been crushed at a junk yard, puts that VIN tag on a stolen car and then presto, the stolen car now has a clean title and VIN. I guess he was new or something.
The person who stole the 1964 car did a good job of covering their tracks, they ground off the engine number and production code and removed the cowl tag. But they also used the wrong rivets for the VIN tag (should have been rosette rivets for a late 1965 VIN). Combine that with all of the other missing identifiers and it was very suspicious. But despite of all that, several people had bought the car since it had been stolen. Once a car is stolen the VIN will get entered into the stolen car database and it will stay there until recovered, even for cars stolen a long time ago. How many times have you seen a story on the news about a car that is recovered after it was stolen 20, 30, or 40 years ago?
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/06/local/me-stolen-bus6
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/20/stolen-1957-chevy-returned/5650155/
If the car is found to be stolen the police will confiscate it, so better to find out before you buy it.
