This summer, a spicy story of automotive identity theft broke in Germany. One happy new owner of a $1.74M Mercedes-Benz 300SL went to register his yellow roadster, only to get the kind of news no car enthusiast ever wants to hear: Another 300SL with the same chassis number was already registered. Authorities assert that a fake car was created using the chassis number from the yellow SL, which hadn’t been to market in decades and was presumed lost. The investigation is ongoing, but noted restorer Kienle Automobiltechnik was searched a few months ago and investigators reportedly started looking for evidence of other duplicates in the shop’s past. Regardless of where the blame for the counterfeit SL lands, the car highlights a rare but cautionary scenario that’s hardly the first one of its kind in the collector-car world.
Learn more about this topic by Andrew Newton as seen on Hagerty.com.
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