Police are investigating Classic Recreations over accusations that it has been taking vehicle identification numbers off old junk-yard-ready Ford Mustangs and placing them on reproduction Ford Mustangs to sell those new cars as classics. Police officers told a local TV station that the owner admitted to knowing what was going on, but claimed to not know that it was illegal. Classic Recreations sells new-body remakes of classic Mustangs, including the Shelby GT500 "Eleanor" from the Gone in Sixty Seconds remake.

The situation is playing out much like what occurred at Unique Performance, a company that went under after investigators accused it of VIN tampering. Unique Performance left 200 people without their deposits, estimated to be around $39 million or nearly $200,000 per person, or their cars after it filed bankruptcy.

Both Unique Performance and Classic Recreations were licensed by Carroll Shelby to produce remakes of its infamous Ford Mustang-based GT350 and GT500 cars of the 1960s.

**Update** Classic Recreations says the "quote attributed to Jason Engel in a single local Oklahoma news report is second hand information that was misquoted by the local media outlet. Classic Recreations denies any and all wrongdoing." **Update**

[via KOCO and Mustang Blog]

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