I'm in Dallas this week working on a customers car, and went to Keith Craft Performance and learned of Uniques's shutdown by Texas DOT, FBI, & Farmers Branch PD. This link tells the story. http://cbs11tv.com/local/local_story_309192500.html
Well, that link was doubley enlightening: 1.)We got to seewhat (at least) the Texas DOT thought about the issuance of "New Shelby VIN's" 2.) I left the video playing after the Unique Performance story ended; and found out what happened to Yuma's old "Eastern Newsbabe" Kaushal Patel. I knew she didn't stay long in Tucson after leaving Yuma; but didn't know what happened after that. She seems to be, ahhhh.... dressing more conservatively these days.
It's good to see that at least nobody else will be taken by Unique Performance. Many people, myself included, are owed money. I'm lucky in the fact that it's only a few hundred dollars for a parts order they never followed through on. I hounded them for over a year, and only got empty promises of a refund. There's people that are owed hundreds of thousands from this company. Now I get to play phone tag with the Farmer's Branch PD, among others, about getting my money back. Chris
The news report makes it sound like they were secretly removing the old vin's and replacing them with fraudulent ones. This was all out in the open, everyone knew what was happening, it was no secret. It's a shame that the news report missed the real criminality here, ripping people off like JEE740 by taking their money and not delivering a product.
I found this link too. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...ustangs_06met.ART.State.Edition2.41f4dc5.html I've also heard a rumor that UP is basically the fall guy...
Ok, I know that someone else already brought this up. But isn't this the same thing that Shelby did back in the 60's and that was perfectly fine, now that they are doing it to the same vehicles some 40 years later, it's illegal? I'm confused, shouldn't this be more about bilking people out of money rather than changing the ID tag to reflect a Shelby ID? I haven't bought anything from UP and really didn't think that I would be able to afford an Eleanor, but this sounds more like it's coming up on an election year and a County Prosecutor is looking to get a big case under their belt just before elections.
You're right. The big issue is that numerous people have given them hundreds of thousands in deposits and have nothing to show for it except empty promises. One thing to wonder is if the cars they have already sold are determined to be washed salvage titles, are they still going to be considered Shelby's or expensive rebuilt salvaged cars?
The difference is Shelby did not grind off the original VINs. http://www.classicmustang.com/tech support/shelby_VINS.htm Grinding off the originals is not only un-Shelby, it seems like a very shady thing to do. What purpose would that serve, other than erase the complete history of a specific vehicle?
Are we talking about newly issued VINs or swapped VINs? Everyone knew about the new VINs. Having an 'Original' Eleanor was part of the appeal. But the article seams to indicate that there was some VIN swapping going on? I'd think whoever is bringing the charges knows the diference, and what is legal. Unfortunately news articles usually aren't very acccurate. And I thought the Fall Guy was played by Lee Majors. He's not involved with Unique? Is he?
There are allegations of "VIN washing", which is registering the salvage car out of state, then bringing it back in as a fresh, non-salvage title. The video also clearly shows the original VINs ground off.
More News - Foose has cut ties... http://www.01vu.com/2007/11/12/were-out-too-foose-design-also-cuts-ties-with-unique-performance/
At the Charlotte Auto-Fair this past April Barretts was autioning off a red 1965 Mustang F-B with a mutilated VIN that you could not read if your life depended upon it. When I asked their rep about it he just laughed it off as though it was nothing.
