Maryland Registration

[comegetjoe]

Early Cobalts are now over 20yrs old. Maybe consider cutting out the VIN on firewall and mounting somewhere inside the Goblin and registering it as a Cobalt under historic registration? This avoids any inspection, as there is now no safety or emissions inspection for historic. The car never gets looked at by anyone at MVA. I've gotten pulled over many times for speeding or not having a front tag in historic cars, and the police don't care at all about it being historic. I have used historic for commuter vehicles for a really long time, like two decades. In baltimore city people use it as a cheap way of owning an old car. Does the Goblin meet the requirements of historic: NO. But as long as it has lights and doesn't have anything else wrong with it, I think police will ignore.

Why? Just go through Montana and be done and legal. Why bite your nails everytime you pass a cop in the hopes that your he doesn't pull you over just to see what your car is and then find out it's registered as a cobalt. I dont know if youve noticed, but these things are absolute attention magnets. No thanks.

 

[Markm]

Early Cobalts are now over 20yrs old. Maybe consider cutting out the VIN on firewall and mounting somewhere inside the Goblin and registering it as a Cobalt under historic registration? This avoids any inspection, as there is now no safety or emissions inspection for historic. The car never gets looked at by anyone at MVA. I've gotten pulled over many times for speeding or not having a front tag in historic cars, and the police don't care at all about it being historic. I have used historic for commuter vehicles for a really long time, like two decades. In baltimore city people use it as a cheap way of owning an old car. Does the Goblin meet the requirements of historic: NO. But as long as it has lights and doesn't have anything else wrong with it, I think police will ignore.

I used to live in the people’s republic of Md and there’s no way I would chance being arrested for swapping a vin plate.

 

[chris_columbia]

I think "swapping" is a strong word. It's the VIN from the donor car, so I think it's a defendable position to use it. If Montana registration is currently working, that's great. I'm definitely not claiming this is a better option, just another idea to consider.

Since Covid, I've not encountered any police officer who had much of any interest in looking for extra work to do. Four months ago I got pulled over for a burned out license plate bulb at 2am. I thought it was some kind of profiling, but I did check and he was right, both bulbs were out. I accidently gave him the registration for the wrong car(it's a long and unrelated story as to why that registration was in the glovebox). He wrote up a warning with wrong tag, vehicle type(pickup vs sedan), make, model, etc. I don't think he cared at all.

 

[comegetjoe]

I think "swapping" is a strong word. It's the VIN from the donor car, so I think it's a defendable position to use it. If Montana registration is currently working, that's great. I'm definitely not claiming this is a better option, just another idea to consider.

Since Covid, I've not encountered any police officer who had much of any interest in looking for extra work to do. Four months ago I got pulled over for a burned out license plate bulb at 2am. I thought it was some kind of profiling, but I did check and he was right, both bulbs were out. I accidently gave him the registration for the wrong car(it's a long and unrelated story as to why that registration was in the glovebox). He wrote up a warning with wrong tag, vehicle type(pickup vs sedan), make, model, etc. I don't think he cared at all.

Good luck with your good luck.

Using the cobalts VIN plate and registration is just worth the potential tow, impound, court, time and all fees associated, let alone missed work during the week to take care of it all if you run across Officer I and Sargent T who wants to be dotted and crossed.

 

[Gtstorey]

And I doubt insurance will pay even a liability claim on a Goblin that is registered as a Cobalt. And I would be surprised if any honest discussion of insurance would go well of trying to get insurance on a kit car that has a Cobalt VIN.