Reminder not to take info on carjam as the gospel

Know of a 71 Camaro that is listed on carjam as an SS. To look at it you would think it was an SS. When the car was in Perth an auto electrician discovered it had been a column change aka bog standard Camaro.

(Obviously an astute buyer would decode the VIN)

What stuff have you seen heard that wasn't kosher on carjam etc ?

My two seater apparently has 5 seats.

You need to remember that Carjam is only as accurate as the information that was supplied at the time it was registered in NZ, so if someone put it was an SS on the registration application, then thats what would have been recorded. There are numerous other reasons why the recorded information isnt correct. Back in the early days of Japanese imports, many were registered using their NZ new name eg: Maxima instead of Cefiro. Poor handwriting on the original rego application saw letters become numbers and vice versa. Cars were registered new as the correct make, but chassis code was used for model instead of the actual model name by the selling dealer. Then when they computerised the registration system in the mid 90's, data entry mistakes were made. Up until at least 1962, only the year and make was recorded, there was no provision for the model at all on the ownership papers. The modern way of recording the registration details at least gives us more uniform/accurate information. Sometimes the mistakes are glaringly obvious, and sometimes quite subtle requiring a little investigation by either looking at the car or deciphering chassis codes etc.

Some years ago I had a mid 90s telstar that car jam said was 1000cc, I've seen many Hyundais registered as Elite when they are not, number of seats is a common one, sometimes car jam says 4 wheel drive when not. Car jam is a good tool but should not be treated as 100% accurate.

Correct.
We had a hightop Toyota van that was branded a Toyota Townace DeltaWide

Turns out it was a hightop Toyota van built by Diahatsu under licence agreement.
Even had Daihatsu part numbers & the paint stain/fade from the original brand could still be seen.
ALL Toyota parts still fitted if you had the part number translation correct.
(It's OEM brand was a Diahatsu DeltaWide)
NZ model version was Toyota Townace so they reg'd it as such

As an avid photographer of classics, there are occasions where I'm not sure of a make or model. Amazing how many crop us as 'never registered' yet quite clearly, it is a NZ issued plate.

There is big gaps in the register thats why. When the system was computerised in the 90's at about the same time as LTSA as it was then started issuing their own VIN numbers, big chunks of records were lost of those vehicles that had already been deregistered prior to about 1992 or so. Their data entry into the new system was not bothered with, obviously not all these cars were scrapped. It is the reason why plates come up as non existent or never registered. Its clearly BS as that registration DID exist but theres no longer any official record of it. Hence when you search a particular plate number and it can't be found its telling you that car had been manually deregistered 30 plus years ago. Cars from the 60's and 70's in particular didnt have very long lives due to their rust issues and the onslaught of used Jap imports.

I can see the point of why inactive registrations data wasnt transferred to the new computerised system in the mid 90's. At the time it was probably decided that it was useless information that would just be cluttering up a new system. Bear in mind that at the time, public access via the internet with the likes of Carjam was still quite a number of years away, with any rego queries still having to be done by going to a Post Office or official agent. From what I have heard the records, or most of them, that werent transferred at the time do still exist, you have to contact LTSA. Not sure how correct that is. I also understand that having that information available now would be very helpful, or at least interesting.