Advice w/ NY Transferable Registration vs Title

[Achim]

I purchased my 1972 280SE 4.5 in March this year in PA, towed it to NY (my state of residence at the time) and registered it there. During registration, I submitted the original PA title and my Bill of Sale. In return, all I received was a transferable NY registration - no title - since NY doesn't issue titles for car from 1972 and older.

Later this year I moved to CA. I was able to register my car, but CA refuses to issue a title since I didn't submit one.

I made several calls to the title offices in CA and NY w/o any result; CA will only issue a title to me if I submit another one and NY doesn't issues titles.
I am truly dumbfounded by this situation - how can I get a title in my name for the car I legitimately own? I can't believe that not having a title doesn't matter - how will I be able to sell the car?

If anybody has experience with this situation or knows how to resolve it, I would be very grateful for advice. This must be a common problem for anybody who bought a classic car in NY.

[cth350]

As a NY resident, what you describe about getting a transferrable registration is "normal". And NYS law says that it's your proof of ownership....
https://dmv.ny.gov/registration/about-transferring-vehicle-ownership-and-acceptable-proofs-ownership

Each state has rules that they follow for old vs new cars and all the other states claim to respect them. NY is one of those cases where titles for cars didn't happen until 1973.

According to the California DMV...
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/new-registration/special-circumstances/converting-non-transferable-registration/
... You need to show ownership of the car. That NY registration does that. With that proof of ownership, they say you should be given a transferrable registration.

The clerk who processed your paperwork might not have understood that.
This is when you need to appeal to a supervisor. Or at least, that's what I'd need to do in NY, along with being patient and polite. Hopefully you have a copy of the original NYS document. If you had the car registered longer than a year, you might well have several of them.

Good luck with it.

-CTH