Help... Vin #'s dont match

Holy crap. Maybe the feds wouldn't have cause to get involved in our hobby if we weren't suggesting that VIN tampering is a normal everyday deal and that the solution is just to take a grinder to any VIN stampings that don't match our titles. Maybe people wouldn't need to go to jail if they didn't break federal law. You can repair these cars LEGALLY. There is a process for doing it. It exists so poor people like the OP don't accidentally buy cars that have been re-bodied for profit.

So it's a re-body. Piece of cake. In California, if that was my car, I would get a signed statement of facts from the gentleman that did the work, preferably on a title transfer form from the DMV, explaining that the car was repaired using another car and that both cars were legally owned. I would take that to the DMV. They would run the numbers, find that neither car was stolen, and issue a state assigned VIN for the car, which would be permanently attached to the frame in the engine compartment and the A pillar at the door opening in the form of a blue VIN plate. The title would reflect the new number, and the rest of the numbers on the car would be meaningless as far as the DMV is concerned. Car is now perfectly legal, and you can explain the whole thing to anyone that will listen.

Why would I bother with all that? Because that's what the last guy should have done, because that's the legal process.