Some "Cross-breeding" is ok......Within Reason!!

There's been a lot of heated debate in the buff magazines lately about cross-breeding-i.e. Chevy engines in Pontiacs, Chrysler Hemis in '32 Fords, etc. Some are good ideas, some are bad ideas, some are just this person has more money than brains stupid. I'll address the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly here, and you can draw your own conclusions about whether a certain swap is a good idea financially and performance-wise. # 1. The Good. If you drastically improve the performance of the vehicle for very low-cost or can get twice the power for the same amount of money-this is a good idea. Here's a couple of classic examples- # 1. For years guys have bought 1953-56 Ford pickups-everyone knows what an iconic classic they are-and installed a Chevelle or Camaro front clip. This gives them modern power steering, and modern front disc brakes for very low cost. It also allows the easy installation of a small or big-block Chevy which makes big power for low bucks. The truck rides, handles, stops, and certainly goes 10 times better than stock, for a low price, and minimal cutting and engineering.  Ford purists scream blasphemy, but the bottom line is this conversion costs thousands less than trying to use all Ford parts and swap in a 351C or a 390 or a 460. That's why guys have been doing it for 40 years.  # 2. Let's say you buy a nice 1964 Buick Skylark that you want to make a street / strip machine out of. It has a 300 inch Buick V8 and a two-speed Super Turbine 300-( read Powerglide ).  There are exactly zero speed parts available for the old 300 inch Buick V8, and a TH350 will bolt in place of the ST300 without even changing the trans mount or the u-joint. So if a guy wanted a lot of performance for low bucks, swapping in a 350 Chevy and a TH350 trans makes a lot of sense. An argument could be made that swapping in a later Buick 350 / TH350 powertrain would be just as easy, and that would fly if you just wanted a nice daily driver.  But for hot-rod purposes-a 350 Chevy is going to make twice the power for half the cost compared to a 350 Buick engine. The other instances where this is smart is if you buy a 403 Olds powered Firebird. It's a lot easier and a lot more cost-effective to hop up the 403 Olds engine that's already in the car than it would be to convert it back to "Real" Pontiac power. Ditto for the late '70's X-bodies and G-bodies- GM played musical engines because of smog laws, so if you have a Chevy powered Cutlass, or a Pontiac powered Regal, again it's much easier and cheaper to play with the drivetrain that's in the car than it is to convert it back to "Brand Matching" power. Even if your swapping for more power-say your Cutlass has a 305 Chevy in it-it's a lot easier to swap in a stout 350 or 383 sbc than it would be to put a 455 Olds in it. ( For one thing, you'd also need a BOP bolt-pattern tranny-Chevys are different. ) It would be a lot easier and cheaper to drop a 400 / 455 Pontiac into a 301 Regal than it would be to change to a 455 Buick. See what I'm saying?  # 2. The Bad. No one cares if you slap a snarling Rat motor into a beater '67 Tempest, but when you do it to a numbers-matching Judge, it's not cool. The same for modern fuelie swaps-you want to buy an LS3 and a six-speed automatic out of a wrecked 2010 Camaro in a junkyard or from a dealer and put it in a '72 Monte Carlo or a '68 Malibu, no one cares. But it's always-a "For real, numbers-matching, four-speed SS396" that some yahoo does this to, and wonders why the townspeople are storming his house with torches. The one guy who did this to a pristine, 1972 Trans-Am couldn't understand why everyone was being so hateful about his car. Well, you could have butchered one of the 10 million or so beater 1970-81 Camaros and Firebirds out there, instead of a numbers-matching, one of 458,  455HO, 4-speed T/A !!!!  Their's enough junk out there to play with, you don't have to cut up a classic that someone else would sell their soul for.  # 3. The Ugly. These can be chalked up to inbred hillbillies or to people with more money than brains.  The 1957 T-Bird with a 389 Pontiac in it and the 1990 Mustang GT with the Chevy LS motor can be attributed to the first category, while the Pantera with the blown Chrysler Hemi in it has to go to the latter. When you see these cars you ask "Why on earth would anyone do that?"  It all comes down to common sense. Mastermind