well, i am a lawyer - i've practiced in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for some 30 years and have a collection of Barracudas myself. however, i am NOT licensed in Tennessee so i am offering you "general views on the law" and not "specific advice under Tennessee law.
1. since you have spoken to the original owner of these cars, you now cannot say "under oath" that you do not know who owns the cars or who might have "an interest" in the cars. so you need to proceed carefully now.
2. i would contact the owner and ask him if he has titles to these cars in his name and if he will transfer the titles to you for a minimal price. the other guy still owns these cars, however, you could also charge him a reasonable storage fee for the cars for the entire time they have been there. i would come up with a number that would be "reasonable" for the storage of a car at someone's lot or garage. call a few body shops or repair shops in the area and find out how much they charge as "storage fees" if a customer leaves a car for a long period of time. obtaining this information will allow you to quote "reasonable market prices" to the owner of these cars. now, you are probably going to find out that the "reasonable" storage fees on these cars is now several thousand dollars for each car. tell the owner that you will give him $100 dollars for each of the cars ($200 in total) if he will sign the titles over to you. tell him if he will not do that, that you intend to sue him for the storage fees for these cars. you should have a local "Magistrate" or "District Justice" where you can file a "small claims" suit against the guy for the storage fees. usually small claims courts do not charge more than about $50.00 to file a suit. now, the Magistrate under Tennessee law probably does not have the authority to "award" you the cars. however, the Magistrate could rule in your favor for say $2500 (as an example) and if the owner does not appeal this award and decision, you would have the legal right to sell the cars to satisfy this judgement. that would be done through your Sheriff's Department. you might also be able to file a "storage lien" or a "mechanic's lien" under Tennessee law at your local Magistrate. the same basic process would happen under that process with you ending up with a judgment from the Judge and then allowing you to sell the cars to satisfy the judgement. i would go to your local Magistrate and talk to them about which of these procedures you might follow and the costs.
3. i would NOT contact the local or State Police at this point! first of all, they are ONLY going to be interested in this matter if some kind of crime has been committed - like the cars being stolen years ago. if the police run the VIN numbers and one or both of them come back as stolen, the police will confiscate the stolen car (cars) and take them to an impound lot. once the police have them, you may or may not be able to get them back. it is not impossible that the police would send them to a crusher because they are stolen.
4. you cannot "legally' sell anything off of these cars now that you are aware that they belong to someone else. that would "technically" be steeling. it would be very helpful if you could find any kind of business records of your father indicting when these cars were taken in and maybe explaining why - or what kind of deal your father had with the owner.
5. as to obtaining titles to the cars - you cannot do that through any process now that you know who the "alleged" owner is. if you would attempt to obtain titles under the set of facts you are facing, you could be committing a crime. however, you can have someone run the VIN numbers to determine if there are any reports on these cars. AND, if the "owner" says he has titles, you need to run that title and VIN to see if the owner guy obtained these cars legally. finally, if he has the titles and they are in his name, transferring the titles to you will be easy. however, if the owner guy has titles to these cars and those titles are still in someone else's name, THAT will be a problem because ONLY the person who is on the title would be able to "transfer" that title to you. one last point about titles on 67-69 Barracudas. the VIN number for a 67 is on the driver's door door post but the VIN for the 69 will be on the top of the dash beside the windshield on the driver's side. 68 and 69 Barracuda's can easily have their VIN numbers changed by just replacing the dash assembly from another car that you have a title to. the ACTUAL VIN on a 68 or 69 Barracuda is stamped on the driver's side of the radiator support on the top and also on the trunk opening flange where the rubber weather stripping is - on the driver's side about half-way between the back window and the rear end of the trunk lid. those stamped numbers should match the title VIN number as well as matching the door post tag (67 car) and the dash pad (68-69 car). if the titles that the owner has do not match any of the numbers on the bodies of these cars, that means he doesn't have valid titles for these cars. unfortunately, if you find this out, you really can't do anything with the cars and would have to contact the State Police and report the VIN number mis-match and see if they will allow a new VIN number to be established for the cars.
6. have you ever heard the phrase: "what did you know and when did you know it?" that now applies to you. the law would treat your situation one way if you had no idea where these cars came from or who owned them. however, now that you know who owns them, the law will treat YOU differently! that is why you must now proceed carefully.
7. i would find a local attorney who does basic contract law or motor vehicle issues and give him some small fee to explain this situation. to be safe, and do things "legally", you need to talk to a Tennessee attorney and get some good advice on how to solve this matter. if you don't do this right, you could find yourself in a MUCH more complicated situation with the law and if that happens, you will wish you had never opened up this can of worms.
