"Dealer Installed" is hard to document....

In the 60's and '70's a lot of individual car dealers were performance minded and would upgrade customers cars for a fee.  Royal Pontiac was famous for it's "Bobcat" tune-up which included re-curving the distributor, re-jetting the carb, installing thin head gaskets to raise compression and adjusting the valves looser so the cars could rev higher. They would also swap a 4-barrel for a tri-power setup or dual quads. They'd even do engine swaps. I remember reading an article in Hot Rod about Royal yanking the 400 out of a customer's '68 GTO and replacing it with a 428 HO, and how fast it was, and how the factory should offer this option, blah blah.  Other's like Don Yenko were famous for putting 427s into Camaros and Chevelles. The cars began life as 396  models. Yenko would then have his parts dept order an L72 Corvette 427 short block. Then the service dept would install the heads,carb and intake, distributor, exhaust and all other accessories from the 396. This made the procedure much more cost-effective than changing the whole engine, and he could pass the savings onto his customer. However it makes the cars hard to document as the vin number and the casting number on the heads say the car is a 396 model. So would a reproduction factory window sticker. Only the casting number on the block would say its a 427.  If the seller doesn't have any of Yenko's original paperwork it would be hard to convince a buyer that the car is a for-real Yenko and not one that someone cobbled up.  Nickey Chevrolet in Illinois was doing putting 427s and 454s into Camaros and Chevelles and Novas. I remember Hot Rod tested an L88 powered '73 Nova that ran in the 11s even with traction problems.  Joel Rosen Partnered with Baldwin Chevrolet and created Motion Performance. They built LS6 and LS7 454 Camaros that were guaranteed to run 10 second 1/4 mile times. They also did Mako Shark conversions on Corvettes. They even built a few LS6 powered Firebirds for customers. Mr Norm's Grand Spaulding Dodge would supertune Mopar Muscle Cars ala Royal Pontiac style. They also built a few Dodge Demons with Paxton superchargers on the 340s and and a few with Six-pack induction installed.  Tasca Ford was famous for it's drag cars. Their 428 Police Interceptor powered '68 Mustang racer was so successful that Bob Tasca is credited with convincing Ford to offer the 428CJ in the '69 Mustang.  Mecham Pontiac created the "Macho T/A" in the late '70's that all the buff magazines raved about. In addition to recurving the distributor and re-jetting the carb, they opened the hood scoop and installed Hooker Headers and real dual exhausts with 2 catalytic converters. These changes were said to add 50-70 hp.  Hot Rod's test car ran a blistering ( for 1978 ) 14.29 in the 1/4. A huge improvement over the 15.20 that a stocker tested on the same day at the same track ran.  Mecham would also install a Doug Nash 5-speed, Recaro seats, a Turbocharger from H-O Racing, basically if the customer wanted something and was willing to pay for it, they'd do it.  Fortunately for "Macho" freaks Dennis Mecham kept detailed records. If you send him the car's vin number he can tell you if the car is a documented "Macho" or not.  The reason I bring this up is people argue all the time about cars having "Incorrect" options. You have to realize that back in the '60's and '70's a lot of options were in initially listed in early sales brochures and factory literature and then for whatever reason didn't make production. Two famous examples- In early 1964 sales literature the 442 package is listed as optional any F85 model including sedans and wagons. However I have never seen one, no magazine has ever produced a window sticker of build sheet for one, and no Olds engineer or executive has ever verified one. Thus all '64 442s were 2-door models.  In early 1973 sales lit and all over the buff magazines the SD-455 was listed as available in the GTO, Grand Prix and Grand Am as well as Trans-Am and Formula Firebirds. In a colossal goof "Cars" magazine dubbed the SD-455 '73 GTO their "Car of the Year". However the engines had trouble passing emissions and their were production problems with the connecting rods and EGR Valve function. Pontiac considered scrapping the project. Only the tireless efforts of Herb Adams saved it. The engine was finally EPA certified in the Firebird line only in April 1973.  That's why only 295 were built-252 in T/A's and another 43 in Formulas.  The other factor is gearheads have always played with their cars, even when they were brand-new, and sometimes they paid their local dealer to do the work. A friend of my dad's had a 400, 4-speed '67 Firebird that he bought brand-new. It had a coolant leak that turned out to be the intake manifold gaskets. The dealership said they would fix it at no charge under warranty, but the car would be down all day because they had to pull the intake. My dad's buddy went into the parts department and bought a Tri-Power setup for a '66 GTO. The service manager said he had no problem installing it as they were puling the intake anyway. So he got a tri-power setup in his Firebird for the cost of the parts. The labor was covered by the warranty.  My dad worked in a Ford Dealer in the '70's and a rich guy with a Pantera was upset that his buddy's Ferarri Daytona had beaten him in a drag race. He paid the dealership who had my dad-their top hand mechanic-yank the 351C out of the Pantera and install a 429 CJ!!  His plan was to go race his buddy again, and if he won-( Which he probably would-the 8:1 351 had 266 hp; the 11:1 429CJ was grossly under-rated at 375 ) he was going to say he'd had the Pantera "Tuned up".  And understatement of colossal proportions, but that was the guy's personality.  The other thing is back then, unlike now-cars didn't come fully loaded. Almost everything including air conditioning and automatic transmissions were extra cost options. I have seen Monte Carlos with six-cylinder engines and three on the tree manual transmissions. I have seen Grand Prix's and Monte Carlos with 4-speeds. I've seen Camaros with six-cylinder engines and 3-speed manual transmissions.  I've seen some of these guys drop 350s in these cars and then never get around to putting in a 4-speed.  The point I'm making is just because something has an odd combination of parts doesn't mean it's a fake or that the seller is trying to screw someone-he may have bought it that way.  My dad installed an LT-1 Corvette engine in a Nova at a Chevy dealer he worked at one time. The L48 350 had blown up; the engine was being replaced under warranty. The shrewd customer negotiated a deal with the parts and service manager where he would only pay the price difference between an L48 engine assembly and the LT-1.  He got a brand-new fire-breathing 370 hp LT-1 installed for something like 300 bucks.  So don't walk away from something that might be a screaming deal just because it looks a little fishy at first glance. Investigate-the car may have a really interesting history.  Mastermind