Don't dismiss a great car because it's not all original....

A lot of people pay a lot of money-and many overpay I think for cars that can be documented as "numbers matching". That's well and good-especially if your looking at buying something really special like a Boss 302 Mustang or an LS6 Chevelle or a W31 Cutlass, or whatever where the engine or other major components were something rare and special. But what if your buying say a 69 GTO. Not a Ram Air IV or Judge model, just a basic GTO. The 350 hp 400 in those cars was the same engine used in Gran Prix's, Catalinas, Bonnevilles, etc. Nothing special. So if the car your looking at doesn't have a numbers-matching 400 in it, does it at least have 1968 or 1969 date codes? That would make it "Correct" if not original. You have to remember that musclecars led hard lives. I've told this story before, but it's worth re-visiting. A buddy of mine in high school had a nice '69 440 / Six-pack Super Bee. One night while drag racing it he missed a shift and grenaded the engine. I mean rods out the side of the block, grenaded. We went to a junkyard and got a used 440 out of a '73 Chrysler Imperial for $250. The only reason he did that, instead of taking a free 383 from another friend is he wanted to keep the tri-power on it, and the intakes don't interchange on "B" and "RB" engines. He drove the car another three years before he sold it. If that car still exists today I'm sure the current owner or whoever is restoring it is cursing us for not at least getting a '69 vintage 440 block!! But this was 1978. They were just old gas-guzzlers back then that no one cared about. Why do you think teenagers could afford them?  He paid $1,500 for the car when he bought it. My other friend had a gorgeous 4-speed SS396 Chevelle that he paid $1,300 for. I paid $900 for my '68 SS396 El Camino and $2,400 for my RAIII / 4-speed Judge!!  You have to realize this happened a lot. So a guy with the above mentioned GTO blew the original engine about 1975. Since it's not an RAIII or RAIV or 455HO-what does he do-he goes to a junkyard and gets a 400 out of a wrecked '71 Catalina or whatever-puts it in the car and keeps driving. He doesn't care that the engine's not original because it was nothing special to begin with-400 Pontiacs were a dime a dozen back then. And he certainly doesn't give a shit what someone is going to think 40 years hence!!  No one knew that the market was going to go so shithouse crazy. Especially on base models. If your looking at a '69 Camaro-not a Z/28 or SS396-just a plain old 350 model-does it really matter that the 350 in it came out of a '74 Monte Carlo?  The L48 350 was Chevy's workhorse engine in the '70's. It went in everything from Camaros and Corvettes to Impalas, and Monte Carlos, and 1/2 and 3/4 ton pickups, Blazers and Suburbans, everything. And people bought them both new and used when they needed a replacement engine. The "Targetmaster" crate engine that dealers sold in the '80's and the base model 350 that GMPP sells to this day, in 2018, is the good ol' L48!!  So if your buying any Chevy built from 1968-1986-chances are it's going to have this engine in it, regardless of whether or not it's "numbers-matching". So even if your looking at a '72 Corvette-guess what? If its not a 454 model or an LT-1, it's an L48!!  So does it really matter that this 8.5:1, 1.94 headed 350 with a lazy cam and a Quadrajet on an iron manifold, is a '72 or a '73 or a '79?  Now on the other hand-I saw a 1970 L78 SS396 Chevelle for sale and the owner had reciepts showing that the original engine was replaced under warranty in 1972. He had the warranty booklet for the replacement engine that the dealer installed. So even though it wasn't numbers matching, it certainly was the "correct" engine for the car-especially since the original was blown up in 1972!! I saw a 1971 Trans-Am for sale-with the same deal. It was a for-real 455HO-but it was a warranty block that was installed in 1972-apparently the over-enthusiastic 1st owner had blown the first one in less than 6,000 miles! In these cases the documentation was critical in the owners getting the price they should for the cars. But that's because L78 396s and 455HOs have a lot of special equipment-forged pistons,special heads,cam and intake, etc. Now if the Chevelle was an L34 or L35 model, or the T/A was a non-SD '73 model-I could give a shit what 396 or 455 it has. Because the L34 / 35 was the oval-port headed, hydraulic-cammed Q-jet carbed workhorse 396 / 402 that was put in hundreds of thousands of Impalas, Caprices, Monte Carlos, Chevelle wagons, pickups and suburbans, and just about every Chevrolet model except the Vega from 1965-1972. And the 455 in a '73 T/A that's not a Super Duty is the same one used in every Bonneville, Catalina, Grand Ville, Grand Am, and Gran Prix built that year, and every other year from 1970-74!! See what I'm saying??   ( You could still get a 455 in 1975 and '76, but they had 7.6:1 compression, and a restrictive intake manifold.)  So use your judgement. If your buying a 1970 Challenger T/A I certainly would want it to have the original 340 / Six-Pack engine. But if your buying a '68 383 Road Runner, and it has a 383 from a '71 Sport Fury in it, I wouldn't panic, and not the get the car!!  However-I've seen people pull this shit over minor parts. I saw a guy walk away from a nice LS5 454 Chevelle because it had an HEI distributor!!  I saw a guy turn up his nose at a for-real Boss 351 Mustang because it had a 750 Holley on it!! Which is why it ran good-the Autolite 4300 is the WORST carb ever made!!!  In fact if I ever bought a Boss 351 Mustang-the 1st thing I would do is rip off that Autolite doorstop-( all their good for ) and replace it with an Edelbrock!!  Same thing for those awful Muncie shifters that Camaros and Chevelles had. Forget powershifting at 6,000 rpm; they wouldn't shift at half-throttle, or above 3,000 rpm if you had your foot in it. So I would definitely be installing a Hurst shifter in any Camaro or Chevelle I bought. I guess I could keep the Muncie in case I ever wanted to sell the car to someone really anal. Would you really not buy a pristine SS396 / 454 Chevelle because it had a Competition Plus?  Remember these cars are 40-50 years old. Just like now-stuff breaks and goes bad-and do-it-yourself mechanics and even professional shops sometimes just get a generic replacement part.  So don't deprive yourself of a really cool car because someone didn't keep it "just as it left the factory" 38 years ago!!  Mastermind