Graham wrote:
As I suggested before there’s a difference between doing it such that the cars are attached, and doing it sufficiently well that no-one would notice with a quick look in the right places.
A couple I know buys only cars that have been rebuilt from wrecks. They are wealthy but cheap, the two often go together. A guy they know does it as his business, and the cars are totally indistinguishable from any other car. The procedure is that he’ll call them when he gets something they’re looking for, they then see the car before and after the work. It’s typically a 2 year old car, it ends up looking better than it did before the accident and they buy it at a very advantageous price. The market value is affected by most of them having a so-called ‘branded’ title but they don’t seem to have trouble selling them when they want a replacement.
In the US there is a huge unregulated culture of modifying cars in invasive ways and an industry that supports it. It doesn’t carry much stigma except for the branded title issue in some states, applicable when the car has been totaled by an insurance company prior to being rebuilt.
I took this photo the other Friday night at our local weekly car event, a VW Six built by its owner in much the same that Piper built the Cherokee Six 
How cut-and-shuts worked in the 80s. Common enough to make a TV programme about it.
A quick google search shows people are still being convicted of selling cut and shuts and passing them off as something they aren’t today.
Good programme, but it’s about insurance write-offs and how there used to be no way of knowing, rather than cut and shuts.
I can see one or two references to a conviction, but I think the articles concerned are stretching a point to describe them as a cut and shut. Most search results for any string containing ‘cut’ and ‘conviction’ seem to relate to a much more unpleasant crime against the person.
My cursory research suggests that what goes on nowadays is a lot of poor quality superficial repairs to somewhat more expensive cars which have suffered serious damage. This is where the cost and difficulty of doing the bodge-job is much lower than the price the car can be sold for, hence the attraction.
I’d maintain that doing a genuine cut and shut that an ordinary consumer wouldn’t just laugh at is incredibly difficult. Cost and time out of all proportion to the money to be made, and the fact that VINs now appear in multiple places on the body make passing muster much more difficult.
Graham wrote:
My cursory research suggests that what goes on nowadays is a lot of poor quality superficial repairs to somewhat more expensive cars which have suffered serious damage.
What can also happen, and does, is that a skilled body guy can buy a total-write-off late model car, fix it the smart (and equally good) way and sell it at a profit. The cost typically charged to an insurance company to repair a car properly is far more than the cost for which it can be done equally properly when the guy is spending his own money. Body shops and dealers are masters at driving up the cost of an insurance claim, and the insurance companies don’t care that much because they raise premiums to compensate. A bigger scale of business benefits the insurance companies because their profit is a percentage of the total amount of money being moved around.
For motorcycles, its even easier. You can total some new motorcycles by tipping them over lightly in the parking lot, and much of what the insurance company would otherwise replace with outrageously priced e.g. plastic fairing panels can be repaired to equal functionality and cosmetic condition for a fraction of the cost – if the guy is skilled enough.
This happens in aviation, salvage airframes go for around $3 to 10k and the cost of dismantling and putting on a trailer. The salvage may be due to a gear collapse, poor rigging. New props, paint and IRAN engine and they are sold on with both new buyer and seller happy. The damage obviously disclosed in the log books.
RobertL18C wrote:
This happens in aviation, salvage airframes go for around $3 to 10k and the cost of dismantling and putting on a trailer.
The guy I mentioned as the buyer of rebuilt late model cars does this as his side job/hobby, but typically with Extra aerobatic planes or the like. He and his partner have just finished a now-immaculate low wing single seat Extra 300, which had no hull insurance when wrecked locally and was bought directly from the owner. Total out of pocket investment in the plane is about $40K including the purchase price, airframe repair (materials) and also rebuilding the engine bottom end after a prop strike and cleaning up cylinders that only had a few hundred hours since new. The difference between that amount and the eventual sale price will pay for a lot of ‘hobby’ labor…
How about cut and no shut? We saw this at an outdoor circus-type event a few years ago:
It drove surprisingly well with the back half missing. It doesn’t have a chassis (instead a sub-frame for each axle) and everything except the fuel tank and battery are in the front of the car, which could easily be moved.
Very possible with a mini! I’d imagine they also removed or disconnected the rear brakes, and will have had to do something with the exhaust.
After this discussion yesterday I had to go and have a really good look underneath my Triumph Spitfire to check for any suspicious welding on the tub or chassis! None found :-)
RobertL18C wrote:
This happens in aviation
Quite a few types can get new wings quite easily and it is done from time to time with Mooneys and also Grummans (who have a wing lifetime limit) .
I did a few of these when I was a student, for my own use, never for sale. It was a way to get a low mileage, ‘new’, car for a student price. But these cars could never meet today’s crash worthiness requirements and always suffered from leaks, rattles, strange tyre wear and accelerated body rot. One, an escort estate that had 3000 miles when I built it, lasted me, my brother, and several other family members until the floor rusted through. Even then, the one secure piece was the string of weld that held the two halves together. It went 150,000 miles.
Today, almost any body repair on a modern car will compromise the whole vehicle in addition to the other stuff mentioned above. The result is a lifetime of niggles that will make the car a misery to own. Take the write off – resist repairs at all costs!
