Unique Performance is gone

[1ntCobra]

I'm not sure that the government has done a service to the customers of Unique Performance here. The concern seemed to be with removing the old serial numbers and using new ones in possibly misrepresenting the cars being sold. But the customers here all knew that they were buying 1960s era mustangs being rebuilt into genuine, but not original shelby mustangs. Would the customer care if the car had perhaps been flood damaged, if the car is completely stripped down to the body, repainted, rebuilt, etc.

If you think about what Shelby did in the 1960s, he put his own serial number plate on top of the ford number. I guess the difference here is that Unique tried to completely remove the ford number before putting on their plate. Well I guess, that was silly since even with original Shelby mustangs, the original ford number can be used to authenticate the car.

I'm not trying to say that Unique was necessarily running a business properly with the big backlog of unfinished cars and apparently using some cheap parts on their rather pricey cars. But having the government come in and confiscate all of the cars because these re-manufactured mustangs are being issued new shelby serial numbers seems wrong, when in fact that is probably the reason why most of their customers were willing to pay the big bucks.

And with all of the cars confiscated, will the government help the customers get their money back from Unique? Or will the government just fine Unique and keep the money?

[computerworks]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

If you think about what Shelby did in the 1960s, he put his own serial number plate on top of the ford number.

In the 60's, Shelby American was classified as an Automotive Manufacturer.
In this century, companies like Unique cannot meet regs and standards to be qualified as such.

[Don]

Police seize cars in investigation
FB: They allege that the manufacturer altered identification numbers
12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, November 6, 2007

By SCOTT GOLDSTEIN / The Dallas Morning News
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com
Police have confiscated more than 60 vehicles as part of a criminal investigation into a well-known custom car manufacturer based in Farmers Branch.

No charges have been filed against the owners of Unique Performance, but police allege the company has been altering vehicle identification numbers on customized cars that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Police say the company uses frames from limited-edition vehicles – mostly Mustangs from the 1960s – to build its custom versions. But the titles on many of those frames have been deemed "salvage," meaning the car has been declared a total loss, police Cpl. Chad Taylor said.

That categorization alone severely lowers the value of the vehicle, Cpl. Taylor said. Police allege that in order to hide the salvage status, the company swapped VINs from similar model cars that didn't have salvage titles.

"What we believe they're doing is purchasing a Mustang of the same year, buying Mustangs around the same year that don't have salvage titles" and replacing the VINs on the cars that had salvage titles, Cpl. Taylor said.

Officials with Unique Performance could not be reached for comment Monday night.

According to the company's Web site, Unique Performance "builds small volumes of handcrafted, limited production vehicles ranging from vintage Shelbys and Camaros to a custom version of the current Ford Mustang."

Police confiscated 61 vehicles from two Unique Performance facilities in Farmers Branch, two in Dallas and one in Grayson County, Cpl. Taylor said. The vehicles are being kept at a storage facility in Carrollton, he said.

Cpl. Taylor said charges are likely, though the investigation is still in the early stages.

"We don't have any charges on anybody as of yet just because the vast amount of evidence we have," Cpl. Taylor said. "Pretty much time is on our side now. We believe we have most or all of the cars. We can kind of sit back and look at what we have."

Charges against the company could include placement of serial number with intent to change identity, a third-degree felony, he said.