Ed, thanks for the welcome, and remember I have first dibs on the red GTO.
Andy, I'm not joking when I said that we have to be diligent, and that most people I have met are good, honest people. Still have to stand by that statement.
I don't know the article to which you are referring, so I can't speak to it. However, my understanding is that the 442 L78 package added to the Cutlass Supreme in 1967 did not include buckets, so column shift was possible.
Speaking personally, not for the other contributors, a good backstory can make a case for putting a feature together on a car that might not be the highest quality restoration. I will often try to sell that story to Drew. We hear a lot of people interested in featuring "regular guy" muscle cars.
And we do feature clones because we see them as a significant portion of the hobby. At the same time, we would obviously decry anyone who would attempt defraud someone by misrepresenting a car.
Additionally, when I work with a broad range of cars, I'm likely to miss what others who know the particular car featured would quickly catch. But for discussion purposes let me ask you, would you pass on an immaculate, real deal car if you knew the engine paint was a shade off? Or if a few parts on the car were cheap repro items because the owner was searching for NOS items, or better quality repros? In all likelihood, I would still do the story, I'm hearing you say you would not do the story.
I respect your opinion and convictions on these points, they certainly warranted a response. If your in Chicagoland, I'll buy you coffee.
Arvid Svendsen
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