Like most of you, I have a supporting collection of 968-related memorabilia in addition to my 968 cars. This includes model cars, posters, and many, many documents and brochures. But recently, I was shown a unique item that I had never seen before, an original MCO for a 968.

What’s an MCO, you ask? That stands for Manufacturers' Certificate of Origin (also known as an MSO, Manufacturers' Statement of Origin). The best analogy I can provide you for this document is it is like a birth certificate for your car.

The manufacturer, in this case Porsche, provides these documents to the dealer along with the physical vehicles when they are new. When the vehicle is sold, part of the registration process is that the dealer turns the MCO over to the state’s DMV in exchange for a vehicle title, and off the car goes to the first, registered owner.

The MCO for the 968, dated Jan. 31, 1994.

Today, many manufacturers including Porsche have specific rules for the dealers regarding the handling of the MCO/MSO in order to keep brand new vehicles out of the hands of brokers who are usually looking to avoid paying taxes.

Despite those rules, and in some rare cases, that initial registration transaction doesn’t always happen. Let’s say a dealer thinks a particular vehicle will be a future collectible and decides not to sell it. This vehicle would still be with its MCO for many years after it was initially delivered to the dealer.

I have heard of this before. I recall many Chevrolet dealers thinking that 1978 vintage anniversary Corvettes would be worth big dollars some day and kept them on MCO. Boy, were they wrong.

Another example of why the MCO would survive is what I believe happened with this rare M030 968, that the vehicle immediately went racing and was later sold as a race car. I guess it would have been a waste of time to register it, so some original dealer just sold it on MCO.

Or who knows, maybe the dealer was the one who raced it? Somehow, this particular 968 has never had a registered owner and the MCO has stayed with it after all these years.

If the current owner was to get the car street-legal again and then registered it, that individual would be owner No. 1, 22 years after the car first arrived at the dealer. This is pretty cool and an example of a rare and seldom-seen document.