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The Lost Car Registry
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November 7, 2008
More than six years ago I started The Lost Car Registry with a simple goal: Bring hope to people looking to find a beloved car they once owned. My interest in starting the site was quite personal: In the late 1970s, my father regrettably sold the first new car he ever owned, a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach I, at a time when he wished that he could have kept it. When I started the site in 2002, I knew there had to be others facing the same predicament as my father: Persons searching for their former cars, mainly in vain, with nowhere to turn. The heartfelt e-mails, phone calls and pictures I continue to receive - several thousand e-mails since I started the website - confirm this.
Until now, this site has been a simple forum: An online bulletin board for people to post infomation about a particular vehicle they are looking for. But like so many of you, I've always wished it could be more than this. Since the site's inception, I have been routinely contacted by visitors asking me to actively assist them in locating their "lost" cars - taking their search to the next level, if you will. To that end, I have spent a great deal of time researching various ways to try to help people locate these vehicles but have always found one major impediment to conduct this type of research: The Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), a federal law passed in 1994, which prohibits the dissemination of motor vehicle registration information to anyone except those meeting very specific reasons for obtaining such information.
Today I am proud to announce that I have entered into a partnership arrangement with a licensed private investigations firm - an organization with more than 25 years in business - in an effort to try to provide a way to locate these "lost vehicles" that the visitors to this site wish to so desperately find. The firm I am partnering with has the ability to obtain vehicle registration information in more than 35 states at this time. In most states, vehicle registration information is current with many years of registration history information available. In several states, however, only historical registration information is available.
This data varies from state-to-state; at the bottom of this page you will find a list which generally outlines the overall registration information available.
We will provide a "search service" where vehicle registration information will be searched in the 35-plus states available (with an average cost of $9.00 per state) searching by submitted VIN number to determine if any current or historical registration information can be obtained. If any registration information can be obtained which shows someone other than you or a family member (which you identified to us as the last known owner), we will advise you that such information exists. Due to DPPA restrictions, however, we cannot provide you directly with the registration information but will give you the option of proceeding with efforts to contact this last known owner.
If you elect to proceed with the contact request, we will locate and contact this last known owner on your behalf, asking if they will agree to contact and negotiate with you in regards to acquiring ownership of the vehicle. We will not become involved in any negotiations of vehicle sale or transfer, only guarantee that we will provide a way for you and the last known owner of the vehicle to communicate and negotiate between yourselves.
If we are unable to locate any current or historical vehicle registration information on your specific vehicle, it may be possible for us to locate other vehicles similar in nature (year, make, model, options) to the vehicle you are searching for near you, which you may be interested in considering. Again, it would not be possible to place you in direct contact with these people without our first contacting them (on your behalf) to determine if they will agree to negotiate directly with you.
The chance to offer this service fulfills a long-standing desire to potentially bring together visitors to the site with the cars they once owned and so greatly miss. To that end, I am excited about being able to offer this service to the members and visitors of this website and would be happy to provide any additional information regarding this service if you are interested.
Regards,
Keith Ingersoll
Vehicle registration information availability (by state): Alabama - Historical
Alaska - Historical
Arkansas - Historical
Colorado - Current
Connecticut - Historical
Delaware - Historical
District of Columbia - Current
Florida - Current
Idaho - Current
Illinois - Current
Iowa - Historical
Kentucky - Current
Louisiana - Current
Maine - Current
Maryland - Historical
Massachusetts - Current
Michigan - Current
Minnesota - Current
Mississippi - Current
Missouri - Current
Montana - Current
Nebraska - Current
Nevada - Current
New Hampshire - Historical
New Mexico - Current
New York - Current
North Carolina - Current
North Dakota - Current
Ohio - Current
Oklahoma - Historical
Oregon - Historical
South Carolina - Historical
Tennessee - Current
Texas - Current
Utah - Current
West Virginia - Historical
Wisconsin - Current
Wyoming - Current
Click on the following links for more information:
©Copyright 2008, The Lost Car Registry. All rights reserved.
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