Products have been isolated from the treatment of N-acylaminoacetonitriles with dry hydrogen chloride which are either the open-chain imino acid chlorides or the dissociated salt forms. These compound types have often been postulated as reaction intermediates but never isolated with an unsubstituted nitrogen atom. In the unsubstituted condition they are analogous to regular or oxygen acid chlorides.Several N-acylamino acids were treated with PCl5 and the reaction solutions were subjected to infrared spectral analyses. The results indicate that the open-chain acid chloride, rather than the azlactone salt, is the predominant product obtained with the compounds used in this investigation.