THe funny thing about the VIN number, or Reg plate.. I think...
I had a 1974 Mazda RX-3 I purchased.. I may have mentioned it in my Grage thread. It was a old race car, that was taken off the street in 1975. And about 65K of the 70K miles it had were track miles. After competing for a season or two in the sparkplug challenge series, the owners... I met most of them.. RENTED IT for Driving schools between thier own races.
There was much arguing about it being a RX-3SP, that had larger brakes and things.. but it wasnt.
In the end when I bought it, the owner never gave me a title.. just a bill of sale.
When the city came after me to license it.. I went to the guy I got it from, and then back through 5 Owners to a guy who lived about 20 minutes away!! He proceeded to tell me of taking it, and its sister car to Texas for around 5 years where he raced them. The sister car was crashed, and he took it to a salvage yard, and they scrapped it... but he didnt have the title with him, so never gave it to them.
Turns out.. he handed me the title to the car I had, and sent me on my way.
Fast forward 5 YEARS.
I had been pulled over 10 or 20 times for having a race car.. no hood, too loud, what is it.. you name it. Never a ticket or anything, just harassed.
I was researching some things, and decided to look up the info on the car.
I looked up the VIN number from the registration sticker, and insurance.. and it was a 1974 RX3. I remembered the numbers from entering them a lot of times.
The next day Im out washing it, and looked at the VIN in the window while washing it and noticed something odd. The numbers were different than I remembered.

Looking at the VIN on the car... and the registration.. I realised it WAS a DIFFERENT CAR!
I called the guy who I got it from.. he didnt have any other titles!
After spending a week contacting the Department of Motor Vehicles.. I finally got a woman who off the record gave me the last registered owner of the car... who lived in Key West.
On calling him he regailed me with a Hour or stories about the car.. and then said we could go to the DMV whenever I am in the keys and he would sign over the documents to the car.

A Year later.. I had sold the race engine out of it.. and then sold the rolling chassis to a guy who had a job with Boeing? in Scotland? I think? Anyhow.. he boxed it in a crate and shipped it over the pond. To be stripped completely and rebuilt from the ground up.
But yeah
Drove that thing.. doing silly things.. and never got pulled over. And they never verified the VIN number. And if they HAD.. JAIL. Immediately. They assume its stolen, and wait for the judge to sort it out. I dodged a huge bullet from that. I drove it as little as possible after I discovered the VIN number was wrong.