I bought an old 1975 Camaro to restore. It had been sitting for years and was in rough shape and no engine and infinite potential. The owners signed off on the title and I dragged it home. The following Monday I went to the DMV to get the title transferred and the nice lady at the counter said "we can't register this title. Our records show this VIN as having been crushed."

She gave me the name and number of the crushing company, which was located out of town. The fellow I talked to sounded like it was a relatively common occurrence. He had someone who could fix it but she was away for the week because her father was having heart surgery.

That was a long week.

The following Monday she called me and said "I fixed it but you'll want to wait 24 hours for it to propagate through the network."

That was a long 24 hours.

The next morning (my birthday) I went to the DMV to try again and the lady said "I can see the correction but it still won't let me do it." She had to go get her supervisor so SHE could put in her passcode to make the change. But finally I left with a clear title.

I surmise that the crushing company probably got a different '75 Camaro with a VIN just close enough that a couple of digits got transposed, or a 5 read as a 6, and the wrong car got listed as crushed.

But I take it all as a good sign that it was properly straightened out. And it's fun telling people that the very first step in getting it fixed up was to get it un-crushed!