hello joliet boy ! I was born there, if i'm right, would you please send me a poor boy from Merichka's ?
could be a 97 with swapped vin plate &matching title, most likely
could be a 99 with a swapped engine/mpem/pipe, least likely
as far as swapping vin plates, its very very easy, a caveman could do it.
as far as an engine swap, its not very easy to do and only a caveman with some experience could pull it off, but it HAS been done before.
with that said, even if its true (vin swap), I wouldn't lose sleep over it as long as it runs good, but somebody at some point probably pulled a switcheroo on the vin.