I have not bought a Pagoda, nor have I sold one, and I have also not shopped for one nor been in the market on either side of the transaction. That being said, my own gut feeling is I would not place any premium on prior ownership, but rather would place all value on the current condition. But that's just me; maybe with all of your prior experience you have a different opinion.
Privacy laws not withstanding, any dealer has the full ability to contact a prior owner (if they know them) and ask them if they wouldn't mind being revealed to the new owner. No laws violated there. Maybe the prior owner wants to remain anonymous and maybe they'd be happy to talk about their ownership. The provenance, without the paperwork is certainly of no value. Maybe provenance has some value if there is a large book of receipts, the original ownership documents, etc. but if it's just "Once owned by John Smith of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania" this is surely of no value, but may give you some kind of joy just talking to a prior owner. Would do nothing for me however.
I did have my own experience with this. Many years ago, in the mid to late 1990s, my wife and I knowingly bought, through a special employee program, the Taurus SHO (2nd generation) owned by "Billy Ford".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clay_Ford_Jr. He is as close to living automotive royalty as it gets. He was driving a navy blue SHO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Taurus_SHO, and my wife "tagged it" for purchase. Now, while he had the car (from new), it was cared for
daily by the Ford staff, washed all the time, and one would think this crew would have perhaps treated Mr. Ford's car just a bit better than the rest. For those not in the know, the SHO was a Ford Taurus, factory modified with performance specifications the most notable of which was the Yamaha engine and a five speed manual transmission. Mr. Ford's SHO was the third of a series of SHOs we had...
...
and by far, the absolute WORST. Being in the mid 1990s there were no pocket cell phones as we know them, but a car phone that was bolted to the side of the console. When they removed it they made no attempt to even cover the holes. The clutch was WAY out of adjustment. The car had squeaks, rattles, and made other sounds that were annoying and showed a lack of care. There were other things wrong with it that SHOULD have been caught during Mr. Ford's ownership, but were not. It was so bad that we only kept it for a short while before ordering a new one. I think over the years we had at least one in each generation and loved them all...except the one with "provenance".
I should note that another car we had once had some squeaks and rattles, and my wife made some calls at work, had the car brought to engineering's "squeak and rattle machine" (it's a real thing) and they cured about all of them.
So, speaking for me, I will place no value on any provenance, but all value on the condition of the car. That's most important.
Yes, if this is of interest you can get some VPN but understand getting free information these days from the white pages or other such search engines is challenging at best; it used to be easy a few years ago before they monetized everything. They'll be happy to sell you a packet of information if you locate someone. They also sell subscriptions.
As Cees pointed out, we here in the USA are 50 States and a number of other provinces and territories (such as Samoa, Puerto Rico, etc.) each with its own rules and laws. The general public can not get information from any of them about anything but your own car. The [peculiar] British tradition of a number plate staying with a vehicle doesn't exist here either. My car had many of them in NY when it was my Uncles 1969-1998; three of them in Michigan while I lived there, and two of them here in North Carolina!
Maybe ask Alex Manos if he would simply pass on your information to the prior owner. Surely he should do that.
