I considered that especially when I saw a car on this forum that had a replacement VIN stamped in the door frame by the DMV. I don't know the extent of where VINs are placed by the Ford factory. I know with Chevys there are several locations of the "hidden VINs" and those have debunked some high dollar Camaro's. Sadly, you are never going to prevent the scammers from doing their dirty work. That's why a paper trail is so important with any collectible.
Possible previous damage can be a telltale sign on identifying this car?
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I actually expect it to be around and registered under the Ford number some where. That being not in
California because of the license plate separation. The stories on how that car was wrecked several times makes me suspect it had a new front clip and the Ford numbers gone?
As far as I know, the '67s "secret" location is under the fender lip on the passenger side. There was a "Ford publication" for Police use that showed the location of the numbers.
I seem to remember that there is one location that requires a hole to be drilled in one of the rear frame rails from within the trunk, i.e., from the top but I don't think that applied to the 67 and 68 Mustangs? I don't remember which car model though.
I have both a 67 and a 68, and can say that if there is a chassis number stamped into the rear frame rail that it must be a very light stamping because it has no "transparancy" like the front numbers do under the stampings.
I think that the engine and transmission stampings were considered at the time to be "secret" stampings and in so many cases are not complete numbers.
Probably the biggest reason that the Shelby serial number system got revised in '68 was because of this issue of being able to register the cars from a bill of sale and use the Ford numbers, not the Shelby serial number and it would come up as a "clean" number.
By the '69 model year the system was completely revised and there was only one chassis number which identified the car as a Shelby model.
Over the years there certainly has been much more then one Shelby disappear in plain sight under it's Ford number and likely they are still out there. Some known. Some unknown.