How to track previous owners of the car without VIN number

Buying/Selling
1

Hi there! I’am Alex (Moscow, Russia), a friend of mine just bought a car of a dream - Ford Torino (1971) and he’s looking for previous owners to know all the history of his beast. The problem is - there is no VIN, but I’ve figure out - there wasn’t VIN’s those days. So the quistion is - how can I track previous owners, using engine or body number? I don’t know how it works in US, maybe there is some services/websites/companys which can provide that info? (licence car plate number identify won’t work because now the car has Russian VRP. The car was shipped in USSR in 89)

Thanks for the help and have a great day!

2

Best way I can think of is to join all the old Ford and Torino forums I could find, post all identifying information there, see if anyone knows about it. But the fact that it’s been out of the US for at least 31 years will make this very difficult to trace.

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3

Thanks for the answer!
I’ll try to join the forums!

4

VINs have been around since mid 50s and became law they were in visible location in 1969. Both my 69 vette and 71 chevelle have VIN in corner of windshield as they are today. Your friend’s car likely had it removed at some point. If it hasn’t been majorly rebuilt, you may be able to find the original build sheet. Not sure what ford did but GM often had them on top of gas tank or under rear seat.

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5

Alex, I can’t think of any reason to even want to know the history of a vehicle this old . The chance of even getting some info is slim.

6

I know how it sounds, but I’m not an officer of KGB (just private investigator), my friend was dreamed about this car the whole life, muscle cars in Russia is not a mainstream (here is just KIA’s, BMW’s and Nissan’s :smile: ) he is very proud of his Torino and want to know the history to tell the story of the car

Снимок экрана 2020-10-22 190113
Снимок экрана 2020-10-22 190113553×622 323 KB

7

There is only 1A35H129342 type of number (I can decrypt it (Lorain, Ohio), but still can’t get VIN do track other info)

8

Sorry, the text with photo was for you

9

@VOLVO-V70- quit being a party pooper. you don’t need to know why they want to know this info. I’d be curious too.

geeze…

:rofl:

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11

That’s funny, but I can understand it :sweat_smile:

12

You won’t get a lot of info just from the VIN from back then. Here’s a site that describes the VIN- https://www.ford-torino.de/en/facts-figures/vin-decoder/model-year-1971/

Finding owner history will tax your investigative skills but has been done before. Good luck. Sweet car!!

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13

Of course they had vin’s in 1971. My 1962 Cadillac has one.

14

Thank you, I’ve decrypt info of Assembly etc. using this website before, but the problem is that the websites need 17-digit VIN to tracking the other info. I thought that it should be easy way to track using old-type VIN, but now I don’t think so

15

You should see the movie " gran torino" with Clint Eastwood.

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16

We both seen this movie :smile: (Eastwood is the best, “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” is the masterpiece)

17

Car in Russia? You may find that the previous owner is looking for it as it might be stolen. Don’t look to hard.

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18

Yep, in Moscow. Nah, we have all the documents of previous Soviet and Russian owners, the car was shipped in USSR legally, but we know nothing of US owners. I’ll try to contact the son of the Soviet owner, maybe he knows something

19

Do you work for the FSB Agency?

That is one beautiful Torino. Did your friend buy it restored or did he do it himself?

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20

Nice one :smiley: (No, I am not)
Good question, I’ll ask it, maybe it will help somehow (never tracking vehicles before)

21

Most of this is confidential information and if in the US, each state has its own data base. Don’t know about Europe but it may have not had any previous US owners if it was shipped over seas.