North Carolina state troopers did not need to hear the engine or inspect the four speed to spot the problem. Through the windshield of Tony Funk's newly purchased 1970 Dodge Dart, they saw ordinary aluminum pop rivets holding the VIN plate to the rally dash. They were generic fasteners of the sort sold at Home Depot, not the distinctive five-sided Pentastar rivets that belonged there.
That small detail changed the inspection. The hood scoops, rally wheels, white Bumblebee stripe, and carefully assembled Swinger appearance could not prove that the title belonged to this body. Once a VIN plate appears to have been removed and incorrectly reattached, the car's identity must be verified through the fender tag, door tag, hidden body number, and whatever remains of Chrysler's original markings.
Two generic rivets, a missing door tag, and one differing digit turned the purchase into an eight-week title ordeal.
This is where a convincing Mopar tribute can become troublesome. Owners expect to change parts on a project car, but identification evidence cannot be handled like ordinary trim. Tony had bought an A-body in Virginia and brought it home to North Carolina. Two generic rivets, a missing door tag, and one differing digit turned the purchase into an eight-week title ordeal.
A Swinger tribute built from a slant-six Dart
Tony's first choice has long been a 1968 Dodge Charger RT, but he could not justify the price of a B-body. Mopar A-bodies were a close second, and he had a specific reason for wanting a Dart. His best friend had owned a burnt-orange 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger when Tony was young. While shopping, Tony considered the 67, 68, and 69 model years before finding the 1970 car he bought.
He inspected a 68 Dart on the day he made the deal. That car might have come home with him if someone had not cut and rolled the quarter panels to clear wider tires, leaving the wheel house and quarter panel poorly connected. Tony was prepared to correct mechanical problems, but he did not want another car requiring major body-shop work. The 1970 was the more solid starting point.
It was not an original 340 Swinger. It began as a baby blue, bottom-of-the-line Dart with a white vinyl top, bench seat, slant-six, and single-barrel carburetor. A previous builder converted it into a Swinger tribute by adding a rally dash, hood scoops, the white Bumblebee stripe, rally wheels, a four speed, and altered flooring where the shifter passed through. From several feet away, it looked like the car it was meant to resemble.
From several feet away, it looked like the car it was meant to resemble.
Tony had no objection to those changes. The Dart now has a 360 bored 40 over, a mild cam, and three two-barrel carburetors. It also came with the usual jobs involved in buying someone else's project. The carburetors need tuning, and oil is leaking from the back of the intake manifold. Those are manageable workshop problems.
The shifter demonstrated how one wrong part can make a polished conversion unpleasant to drive. Someone had installed a B-body console pistol grip, causing Tony to hit the steering wheel whenever he selected reverse. He replaced it with an E-body pistol grip shifter and rebuilt the shifter mechanisms.
Two Home Depot rivets put the title in doubt
North Carolina required an inspection because Tony had purchased an old car in Virginia and wanted to title it in North Carolina. The state troopers needed to determine that the Dart had not been stolen. A strong-running 360 and a tidy Bumblebee stripe were irrelevant to that task. They needed identification marks that matched the title and one another.
The rally dash caused the immediate trouble. When the previous builder replaced the base-model dashboard with the more desirable rally dash, the original VIN plate had to be transferred. Rather than preserve and reuse the correct fasteners, someone attached the plate with standard aluminum pop rivets. The bright, generic rivets were obvious to inspectors who knew the plate should have been secured with five-sided Pentastar rivets.
The problem was not the decision to modify an old Mopar. The rally dash helped make the Swinger tribute convincing, along with the hood scoops, rally wheels, four speed, and stripe. But the builder had treated the VIN plate as another dashboard component. Moving it without preserving the correct installation made it look as though someone had tampered with the car's identity, whatever the builder intended.
But the builder had treated the VIN plate as another dashboard component.
Inspectors then turned to the car's other identification points. The Dart still had its fender tag, but repainting had eliminated the door tag. That removed an accessible piece of supporting evidence just when Tony needed it. Without the tag, an inspector could not use it to connect the body, VIN plate, and paperwork.
Buyers need to catch this kind of mistake before money changes hands. On an old Mopar with a changed dashboard, inspect the VIN plate closely, look for the correct Pentastar rivets, confirm that the fender tag remains, check for the door tag, and locate the hidden body number. A tribute can be honestly represented and still have an identification problem that blocks a clean title transfer.
Five matching digits and an eight-week wait
The hidden body number in the trunk did not resolve the matter cleanly. It read 077632, while the sequence on the VIN plate was 177632. Five of the six numbers matched. Tony believed both markings pointed to the same underlying sequence, 77632, but the North Carolina DMV would not immediately accept that explanation.
Tony based his interpretation on research into Chrysler's practices at the Windsor Ontario plant in 1970. He believed both numbers identified the Dart as number 77632. The reasoning was plausible, but inspectors were not prepared to approve a car solely because five digits matched, especially after finding a VIN plate attached with incorrect rivets.
Tony then had to document how Chrysler marked these bodies. He contacted Galen's Tag Service and others familiar with Mopar identification from that era. The practical consequences went well beyond delayed repairs. Carburetor tuning and an intake-manifold leak can wait on the garage floor. A disputed title can halt the entire project.
The wait lasted eight weeks.
The wait lasted eight weeks. North Carolina state troopers eventually called Tony to say they had validated his information and were releasing the title. The Dart could stay, and work could continue. The approval did not make the generic rivets correct. It meant only that the state had accepted the evidence connecting the title to the body.
Tony now has the correct Pentastar rivets. He plans to replace the generic aluminum ones when he adds air conditioning, sparing the next owner the same immediate suspicion during an inspection. The car needs a straightforward fix: retain the rally dash, secure the VIN plate with the proper five-sided rivets, and keep the identification points in a condition the next inspector can follow.
Anyone considering another Swinger tribute should spend less time admiring the scoops and more time looking through the windshield. Check the VIN plate fasteners, find the fender tag and door tag, then locate the hidden body number and compare every digit before loading the car onto a trailer. Tony's Dart was eventually validated, but resolving the problem took eight weeks. Two correct rivets and careful handling of the original tags could have prevented it.
