Vehicle Identification Numbers are important; they give your car its unique identity right from the factory. But what does it mean if your car oddly shares a VIN with another car? As we found out from CorvetteBlogger, that’s exactly what Ohio authorities are investigating, following the acquisition of information that two ‘67 Corvettes have actually been linked to the same VIN. So which car does the VIN actually belong to? That’s exactly what police and we’re sure the car owners would like to get to the bottom of.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Vehicle Theft Unit got word of the duplicate VIN after the owner of a ’67 Corvette purchased at a Springfield, OH dealership in 1994 found out that the title for his car had been cancelled after the sale of another ‘67 Corvette with the same identification number. According to investigators, VIN tampering is one sign that a car may have been stolen, so Ohio police are looking very closely into this case.
Upon examination of the second Corvette with the same VIN, authorities found a secondary “confidential VIN” on another point of the car. These confidential identification numbers are used to verify that a car is really associated with the primary VIN. As for the confidential VIN found on the second Corvette, the number is actually linked to a ‘67 Corvette stolen in Texas back in 1973 that was never recovered.
As part of the investigation, which has been ongoing since March, the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Vehicle Theft Unit served Springfield’s Mershon’s World of Cars with a search warrant last week. Once there, authorities seized two VIN plates, six data trim tags and two vehicles, a ’65 GTO and a ‘70 Chevelle. The dealership’s owner Dan Mershon told the Springfield News-Sun that the GTO was taken because an identification number on the underside of the car was illegible and the Chevelle was taken because the engine did not have an identification number.
While the investigation continues, Mershon, who has been in business for over 30 years, maintains his innocence, telling the Springfield News-Sun that he doesn’t sell stolen cars and no criminal activity had taken place at his business. There is no word on where the second Corvette with conflicting VIN was purchased.
