More on crazy "Correctness"....

Kind of in the same vein as the last post I see some utter insanity in musclecar restorations. I read an article where a guy paid $4,000 for a carburator for a Boss 351 Mustang. To me that's insane. Mainly because my dad and I worked for Ford in the early '70's and the Autolite 4300 is the WORST carb ever made, bar none. They didn't work when they were brand-new. If you had a 351CJ  Mustang or a T-Bird or Lincoln MKIV with a 460-they would be hard to start, stumble under acceleration, get crappy gas mileage-I mean like 5-8 mpg-they were just awful. If you bitched hard enough Ford dealers would replace it with a 600 Holley 4bbl and warranty it. That's how bad they were, brand-new. I can't imagine trying to make one work 40+ years later. So if I was buying a for-real Boss 351 I'd be happy to see an Edelbrock or Holley carb sitting on top of the engine. Especially if I wanted to drive the car at all. Be honest-if your looking for a one of 1,806 1971 Boss 351s ever built, and you find one perfectly restored, with a numbers-matching engine and tranny, the color you want, the interior color you want, with a Marti report. Are you going to not buy it because it has a 750 Edelbrock or Holley on it instead of that awful Autolite 4300? I don't think anyone in their right mind would pass up an otherwise flawless car over a carburator. I read of another person restoring a COPO 427 Camaro who paid $14,000 for a "Correct" 12-bolt rear end. That's not a typo-I didn't mean $1,400-I meant Fourteen Thousand!!  For an axle housing??  Assuming the car is otherwise all there, it's still going to be worth 6 figures even with an "incorrect" rear axle-whether it's a 12 bolt with the wrong date codes, or a 10 bolt, or a Ford 9-inch or a Dana 60!!  That's just insane-especially when you can buy a brand-new Moser 12-bolt posi, or a Currie 9 inch with GM mounting points for about $3,000!!  This fetishization of "numbers" has got to stop. I mean-let's say you had $150,000 to spare and you found a for-real, numbers-matching 1963 Fuel-Injected Split-Window Corvette Stingray with the knock-off wheels, everything. Except the T10 4-speed in it doesn't have 1962 or 63 date codes, because the case on the original trans was cracked, and the guy who did the restoration installed a new Richmond unit. Or a rebuilt T10 out of a '79 Z/28 Camaro. Are you really going to not buy the car because the trans-which is technically "correct"-it's a T10-has the wrong manufacturing date stamped on it?  Really? Personally I think the restorer did the right thing. A later T10 is much more correct for the car than if he slapped a Muncie in it. Especially since a lot of Concours show organizations are allowing parts to be the "Original Type"-i.e.-a '69 Z/ 28 won't lose points because the 3310 Holley carb on it doesn't have 1969 date codes. Or should the restorer have scoured the galaxy and spent umpteen more dollars searching for a 1963 vintage T10?  Come on. A pristine, '68 GTX with a 440 is not ruined because the owner put a new Edelbrock AVS carb on it in place of the warped, leaking, bleeding over, 50 year old original Carter!!  An SS396 Chevelle is not "bastardized" if it has a Hurst shifter in place of the awful Muncie unit. At some point the voice of reason and sanity has to kick in. Mastermind