- 287
- 621
- 93
- Location
- Plaquemine, Louisiana
I wanted to share my experience with everyone concerning getting my M37 registered and titled in Louisiana and a little history of my restoration.
It started about 4.5 years ago now that I took a trip to Alabama to get a 1954 M37 that did not have a title (Alabama does not issue titles to vehicles that old) and the owner sold to me with a BOS. It lived its entire post military/gov life in-between several farms around Alabama and this led to the existence of a registration to be unknown. This was my first time ever purchasing a vehicle from an individual and I did not know what would be in store for me in the very near future. So I came home with a signed and notarized bill of sale and my truck!!
Once the truck was brought home, I immediately started the tear down process. Stripped it down to the frame and began repairing all the pieces for restoration. I replaced all rotten metal with new and I limited my use of Bondo to only where necessary (mostly for the large sections of metal that had pitting). A couple of months into the restoration, I had a fire in my shop which halted all work for almost 8 months. It was an accident that I had caused and luckily no one was hurt (except for my pride).
While I couldn’t work in my shop, I had the engine sent off to an engine shop to be rebuilt. I know my limits and I don’t know how or have the inclination to rebuild motors no matter how simple/complex. I stayed in my lane!! This will play a very important key role in the future registration and title process. I thought now would be a good time to go and get the registration and title work going for my truck. My plan was to use the “in lieu of” statute that Louisiana has to allow ex-military trucks to use the hood numbers instead of a license plate.
So off I go to the magical world of the Louisiana DMV special plates division in Baton Rouge. Long story short, a notarized bill of sale means absolutely squat to the DMV without any official paperwork that shows ownership. I am now contemplating my previous choice on buying this M37. Without paperwork I will be unable to “legally” drive the truck around town and as far as resale value goes, I will be severely limited on who would buy a truck with not registration and title. I definitely learned my lesson!! After a few months of feeling sorry for myself and having the truck just sit, I continued to restore the truck as I am now too far invested to stop and I figure I will still trailer it to shows and enjoy it when it is completed. I am almost at the point where I will be replacing bushings and other parts on the frame, when I noticed a severe crack in the frame. I was pretty disappointed to say the least and after all the work I put in, for this to now hit me. Needless to say this put me in another sour mood for a couple of weeks.
It’s at this point I see a member post an M37 in the “Pay it forward” part of the forum. I was the second or third person to reply to him and like my dad always said, “without bad luck I’d have no luck at all”. It is at this point that I noticed @kendelrio was the person who contacted him first. I had “spoken” to Ken a few times before as he purchased an M923 that I had looked at that Trailboss was selling years ago. I shared some pictures of the truck when I went to look at it back then. I knew that Ken had recently purchased an M37 and I was wondering what his plans were for this truck. We talked a couple of times and came to an agreement on transporting the truck back from Lubbock, TX to South Louisiana. (You can see his post here detailing the trip https://www.steelsoldiers.com/threads/a-legacy-m37-recovered.207982/ ). I was able to get the title along with the frame and engine as Ken did not need these to complete “Ethel”. This was an unbelievable turn of luck for me. I am now able to put all my restored parts onto this frame along with my rebuilt engine (remember from earlier I said the engine will come into play later) and then be able to get it registered in Louisiana.
It was a tremendous amount of work, however I now had the motivation to get the parts from the Alabama truck swapped over to the TX frame and ready to have it inspected by the Louisiana State Police. I loaded the truck up and off I went hoping that I would soon have my truck ready to be registered. Insert sad music here. I arrived and was excited because the trooper conducting the inspection was a retired army veteran and was admiring my truck. He climbed around the truck and got all the info he needed and we headed into the office. This is where things get interesting. My frame number does not match the VIN number on the title. The VIN on the title is a 12 digit number and the number on the frame is 8 digits. He then tells me that Louisiana only recognizes the frame number and that since the numbers don’t match I can’t get an inspection and that I need to contact Texas DMV to resolve the issue. This is a death blow to my excitement, as I thought I would have to trailer the truck back to Lubbock or somewhere in TX to get this fixed. I left feeling utterly defeated and back to square one. I was keeping @kendelrio in the loop on how things were going and how I may be in the same boat as I was before.
One day Ken called me to see if anything had changed on getting the truck registered. I told him that nothing had changed on my end. He then gave me a number to another member (sorry I don’t know his screen name) in Southeast Texas that had gone through something similar and maybe he could point me in the right direction. I contacted the guy Ken gave me and we talked for a good while on the situation. He suggested I contact a DMV service center in TX and see what they could do for me. They stated that for what I needed, I would need to contact the DMV directly. I then called and spoke with the nicest young lady (I am 45 and this makes me feel even older) who took the info I had and asked to put me on hold for a few minutes. I said I would hold on for a month if it would help my situation. After about five or six minutes, she returned to tell me that I should go to a page on the DMV website while I was on the phone with her so I could read along regarding my title. Come to find out, Texas uses the engine number on all vehicles (except for Ford and Volkswagen) from 1955 and older for the VIN. They don’t use the number stamped on the frame like Louisiana and most other states do. I was ecstatic to learn this information. I have the engine that is listed on the title, however it is not in the truck but sitting in my shop as I installed my rebuilt engine. So with this new info I head back to the State Police with my truck and the TX engine on my trailer to get my inspection. The same trooper remembered me and I informed him of what I learned. 10 minutes later I have my physical inspection and I am off to the Special Plates division to get my paperwork. I walk in and have a seat with a very helpful DMV employee. I must say that the Special Plates division has some of the nicest employees I have ever encountered at a DMV. We go through all my paperwork and come to the point of the title and here is where the brakes get put on again. I am now informed that I need to have another inspection due to needing a VIN replacement and of course this can’t be completed that day and I have to make an appointment for a trooper with another division to come and inspect the truck and engine. The reason for the VIN replacement is due to the fact that I am not using the “titled” engine that came on the frame. The DMV clerk types a very detailed letter stating that I have all the correct paperwork and what is needed to complete my registration process for when I return to Special Plates.
The trooper came to my house and performed the inspection. I explained a brief history of what I did to the truck. She took her pictures and took notes and said I should hear from her in a week or two. On the third week after her inspection, I get a call that she will be coming to bring my paperwork which will include a new VIN id sticker that will be placed on the truck B pillar. This was completed of course on my last day off so now I must wait until my next days off to go back to Special Plates.
The days passed like it was the last week before summer break. I didn’t sleep the night before I was going to the DMV like I was a kid on Christmas eve. I arrived at the Special Plates the next morning and all the stars must have aligned as I was able to get my new registration and title paperwork completed.
I now have a registered 1954 Dodge M37 in the state of Louisiana!!!!
To recap what is needed for registration process if vehicle was from out of state and you want to use the “in lieu of “license plate option. I recommend this option as it is a onetime/lifetime $25 fee plus all the other registration fees and it is transferable:
Thanks
Mike
It started about 4.5 years ago now that I took a trip to Alabama to get a 1954 M37 that did not have a title (Alabama does not issue titles to vehicles that old) and the owner sold to me with a BOS. It lived its entire post military/gov life in-between several farms around Alabama and this led to the existence of a registration to be unknown. This was my first time ever purchasing a vehicle from an individual and I did not know what would be in store for me in the very near future. So I came home with a signed and notarized bill of sale and my truck!!
Once the truck was brought home, I immediately started the tear down process. Stripped it down to the frame and began repairing all the pieces for restoration. I replaced all rotten metal with new and I limited my use of Bondo to only where necessary (mostly for the large sections of metal that had pitting). A couple of months into the restoration, I had a fire in my shop which halted all work for almost 8 months. It was an accident that I had caused and luckily no one was hurt (except for my pride).
While I couldn’t work in my shop, I had the engine sent off to an engine shop to be rebuilt. I know my limits and I don’t know how or have the inclination to rebuild motors no matter how simple/complex. I stayed in my lane!! This will play a very important key role in the future registration and title process. I thought now would be a good time to go and get the registration and title work going for my truck. My plan was to use the “in lieu of” statute that Louisiana has to allow ex-military trucks to use the hood numbers instead of a license plate.
So off I go to the magical world of the Louisiana DMV special plates division in Baton Rouge. Long story short, a notarized bill of sale means absolutely squat to the DMV without any official paperwork that shows ownership. I am now contemplating my previous choice on buying this M37. Without paperwork I will be unable to “legally” drive the truck around town and as far as resale value goes, I will be severely limited on who would buy a truck with not registration and title. I definitely learned my lesson!! After a few months of feeling sorry for myself and having the truck just sit, I continued to restore the truck as I am now too far invested to stop and I figure I will still trailer it to shows and enjoy it when it is completed. I am almost at the point where I will be replacing bushings and other parts on the frame, when I noticed a severe crack in the frame. I was pretty disappointed to say the least and after all the work I put in, for this to now hit me. Needless to say this put me in another sour mood for a couple of weeks.
It’s at this point I see a member post an M37 in the “Pay it forward” part of the forum. I was the second or third person to reply to him and like my dad always said, “without bad luck I’d have no luck at all”. It is at this point that I noticed @kendelrio was the person who contacted him first. I had “spoken” to Ken a few times before as he purchased an M923 that I had looked at that Trailboss was selling years ago. I shared some pictures of the truck when I went to look at it back then. I knew that Ken had recently purchased an M37 and I was wondering what his plans were for this truck. We talked a couple of times and came to an agreement on transporting the truck back from Lubbock, TX to South Louisiana. (You can see his post here detailing the trip https://www.steelsoldiers.com/threads/a-legacy-m37-recovered.207982/ ). I was able to get the title along with the frame and engine as Ken did not need these to complete “Ethel”. This was an unbelievable turn of luck for me. I am now able to put all my restored parts onto this frame along with my rebuilt engine (remember from earlier I said the engine will come into play later) and then be able to get it registered in Louisiana.
It was a tremendous amount of work, however I now had the motivation to get the parts from the Alabama truck swapped over to the TX frame and ready to have it inspected by the Louisiana State Police. I loaded the truck up and off I went hoping that I would soon have my truck ready to be registered. Insert sad music here. I arrived and was excited because the trooper conducting the inspection was a retired army veteran and was admiring my truck. He climbed around the truck and got all the info he needed and we headed into the office. This is where things get interesting. My frame number does not match the VIN number on the title. The VIN on the title is a 12 digit number and the number on the frame is 8 digits. He then tells me that Louisiana only recognizes the frame number and that since the numbers don’t match I can’t get an inspection and that I need to contact Texas DMV to resolve the issue. This is a death blow to my excitement, as I thought I would have to trailer the truck back to Lubbock or somewhere in TX to get this fixed. I left feeling utterly defeated and back to square one. I was keeping @kendelrio in the loop on how things were going and how I may be in the same boat as I was before.
One day Ken called me to see if anything had changed on getting the truck registered. I told him that nothing had changed on my end. He then gave me a number to another member (sorry I don’t know his screen name) in Southeast Texas that had gone through something similar and maybe he could point me in the right direction. I contacted the guy Ken gave me and we talked for a good while on the situation. He suggested I contact a DMV service center in TX and see what they could do for me. They stated that for what I needed, I would need to contact the DMV directly. I then called and spoke with the nicest young lady (I am 45 and this makes me feel even older) who took the info I had and asked to put me on hold for a few minutes. I said I would hold on for a month if it would help my situation. After about five or six minutes, she returned to tell me that I should go to a page on the DMV website while I was on the phone with her so I could read along regarding my title. Come to find out, Texas uses the engine number on all vehicles (except for Ford and Volkswagen) from 1955 and older for the VIN. They don’t use the number stamped on the frame like Louisiana and most other states do. I was ecstatic to learn this information. I have the engine that is listed on the title, however it is not in the truck but sitting in my shop as I installed my rebuilt engine. So with this new info I head back to the State Police with my truck and the TX engine on my trailer to get my inspection. The same trooper remembered me and I informed him of what I learned. 10 minutes later I have my physical inspection and I am off to the Special Plates division to get my paperwork. I walk in and have a seat with a very helpful DMV employee. I must say that the Special Plates division has some of the nicest employees I have ever encountered at a DMV. We go through all my paperwork and come to the point of the title and here is where the brakes get put on again. I am now informed that I need to have another inspection due to needing a VIN replacement and of course this can’t be completed that day and I have to make an appointment for a trooper with another division to come and inspect the truck and engine. The reason for the VIN replacement is due to the fact that I am not using the “titled” engine that came on the frame. The DMV clerk types a very detailed letter stating that I have all the correct paperwork and what is needed to complete my registration process for when I return to Special Plates.
The trooper came to my house and performed the inspection. I explained a brief history of what I did to the truck. She took her pictures and took notes and said I should hear from her in a week or two. On the third week after her inspection, I get a call that she will be coming to bring my paperwork which will include a new VIN id sticker that will be placed on the truck B pillar. This was completed of course on my last day off so now I must wait until my next days off to go back to Special Plates.
The days passed like it was the last week before summer break. I didn’t sleep the night before I was going to the DMV like I was a kid on Christmas eve. I arrived at the Special Plates the next morning and all the stars must have aligned as I was able to get my new registration and title paperwork completed.
I now have a registered 1954 Dodge M37 in the state of Louisiana!!!!
To recap what is needed for registration process if vehicle was from out of state and you want to use the “in lieu of “license plate option. I recommend this option as it is a onetime/lifetime $25 fee plus all the other registration fees and it is transferable:
- Bill of sale
- A copy of the sellers DL (front and back) and a statement that the seller is not a resident of LA
- Notarized Title
- Physical inspection (done by LSP or any Post Certified LEO)
- Not necessary but I brought a copy of the LA Policy 18.01 Use of Military Vin In Lieu of License Plates on Privately Owned Military Vehicles for reference
Thanks
Mike
