A "Clone" may be the only way some of us can have our dream car....

Got a bunch of heat from "Purists" over the last post-but I don't care. I've gotten crap from people over my Hurst / Olds-which while rare-it's not a Hemi 'Cuda convertible-But even if it was-Where do you get your balls big enough to walk up to another man, a total stranger-and tell him he's stupid for driving his own car? Or for drag racing it during "Hot August Nights" or on the Hot Rod "Power Tour" or some other event? I've had people actually swear at me in the pits when they see the Chevy engine under the hood. Excuse me-It's my property, I can do whatever I want with it. Secondly-I put the Chevy engine in it so I could run it as hard as I wanted and not worry about putting a rod through the side of a rare, numbers-matching block. I have the original 455 Olds V8 and BOP bolt-pattern TH400 in my garage in case I ever want to sell the car to a "Just as it left the factory" type. For the right price I'll sell it with both engines, or I'll pull the Chevy out and put the Olds powertrain back in. But I don't need some Pompous ass telling me I've "ruined" the car or that I'm crazy for driving it. I don't want a $10,000+ piece of garage jewelry that I show to people and never drive because I'm afraid of wrecking it or putting too many miles on it. If you were married to Pam Anderson   would you make love to her every day and take her out often or would you lock her in a closet because your afraid of "damaging" her or decreasing her "Star Power"?  As to the Clone deal-I saw one at an auction on TV-it was a 1970 Chevelle SS454 LS6 clone. The seller freely admitted it wasn't original. He'd taken a 2 dr Malibu and decked it out like an SS and rebuilt a junkyard 454 to LS6 specs. The price was $22,000!! That was a screaming deal for the buyer. Even if you are an expert mechanic / bodyman and can do all the labor yourself, you can't buy a small-block Malibu, and all the exterior and interior trim parts from Year One, and build an LS6 spec 454 and paint it for $22,000. No way. And a "Real" LS6 will cost you 4 times that. You'd have a hard time finding an L34 SS396 in any kind of shape for 22K. So they both made out-the seller sold his car and the buyer made the deal of the century. Like I said when he's banging through the gears he's not thinking about VIN numbers and when people "Ooh" and "Ahh" over it at gas stations or the drags nobody knows it's a fake unless he tells them!  As long as he doesn't try to sell it as an original for an exorbitant price, who cares? And shut up about the argument that clones hurt the market for numbers-matching cars. Does the fact that Colt makes Single-Action Army Revolvers and .45 ACP automatics to this day diminish the value of an 1873 SAA revolver or WWII vintage 1911 pistol?  Of course it doesn't!!  But guess what? The shooting enthusiast can go to his local gun shop and buy a brand-new Colt 1991A1 .45 ACP pistol for about $900 bucks and put thousands of rounds through it at the range or in competitive matches and not worry about it. Ditto for the "Cowboy Action" shooter-he can buy a new SAA .45 revolver for about $1,200 and play "Wyatt Earp" to his heart's content. Neither of these guys can afford $5,000 on up for an "Original" and if they could-they damn sure wouldn't put 500 rounds a weekend through it!!  It would probably be hanging on the wall in an expensive walnut and glass showcase. That's what I'm saying-just like guns were meant to be fired-cars are supposed to driven. I understand not wanting to put a lot of miles on an expensive, rare car. But if you drive it 100 miles a month-your only adding about 1,000 miles a year. So in ten years is your pristine 440 / Six-Pack Charger or RAIV Judge or whatever really going to be worth a penny less because it has 69,000 miles on it instead of 59,000??  I'd rather have enjoyed it on all the sunny days I wanted to rather than preserve every last ounce of "Resale Value". Who-besides a real-estate speculator-buys something with the paramount attribute being what it will be worth if or when I want to get rid of it?  Did you marry your wife because you thought she'd give you a less-expensive divorce than the other women you dated?  Come on, guys. You could take a '65-68 Mustang fastback and with the help of the aftermarket build a great GT350 or GT500 clone for about 25K, including the purchase price of the base car-( say 10K for a good, driver-quality Mustang ). You can't touch a "Real" Shelby for under a 100 grand. So why can't the guy have a unique fast car and not spend the price of a house?  A lot of guys, over the course of a couple years can scrape up 15 or 20 grand for a hot rod project. But I don't know anyone who can write a check for 80 or 100 grand for what is almost certainly going to be a third or fourth car in the family. If you can do that-good for you. But 90% of the rest of us can't. So don't deride the clone builders. That's the only way many people can have a musclecar. Mastermind