PattieAM
The vehicle will have no registration record until it is sold by the dealer to the customer. Only then does the registration record begin. The vehicle may well have been on several dealer's lots or one of the many lots owned by the same dealer if it is a large dealership. It's not uncommon for MHs to be shipped around from lot to lot, 'looking' for the right customer. There may be no 'official' (DMV) record of its travels and only some in-house stuff. The last (selling) dealer may know where the vehicle came from, but that might have been from another of their own lots.
Just like autos which are traded in. If they are not of sufficient value to the purchasing dealership, they go to a wholesaler and to, perhaps, several dealers from there, before being finally sold again. The middlemen in this scenario may be completely left out of the registration process. I own a used vehicle that went from the original owner and given to a charity for auction. A 'dealer' bought the vehicle from the auction, sold it to another dealer who passed it on yet again to another dealership in MEXICO. (The vehicle actually never left the US, just on paper). It was again transferred to another US dealer, from whom I purchased it. However, despite all these transactions, the 'official' DMV record shows that I purchased the vehicle from the original owner.
It will be extremely difficult to establish the vehicle's whereabouts for the missing six months because the records may well go missing, once the vehicle has moved on. Obtaing these kinds of records, if they still exist, would require civil legal action, subpoenas and a lot of investigatory work. The best bet is to establish culbability with the manufacturer and selling dealership. Both of whom are 'of record'. Due to the time-frame, Katrina is not an issue here.
BT