I think the real issue is what the title says. Laws very from state to state.

 

With the way our Z's rust, this may be a case of making one usable car out of two bad ones. Worse may be if the police trace the firewall number back to a stolen vehicle.

Normally the number engraved on the car is the most important VIN number it supersedes all removable plates. I agree with CO on what happened. Leave the DMV alone, don't beat on that hornets nest. Get plates that match the title and move on.

 I've found when dealing with a bureaucracy (DMV) tell them what they want to hear. Everything works out just fine when you don't make their day difficult with details. 

the dmv now days doesn't really care about any car made before the institution of the 17 digit vin number in 1981 as long as the number doesn't come up stolen. When I registered my 280z they gave me a whole bunch of grief because my vin was too short. I had to tell him that he can just add zeros to the end of it and the computer won't care and neither would I.

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