I bought a 6cyl. Nova in 68. Turned out it had a experimental 396 in it. When I traded it in a few years later i replaced it with a 6, so I wouldn't get in trouble.
i had a few 307 chevy's that the casting #'s said 283 on them. i was told they used leftover 283 blocks to build 307's
I bought a 73 chevy 3/4 ton camper spcl , for the motor, from the original owner with a phone book of receipts. It turned out to be a 72 vette motor complete with windage tray and every thing, it was a Canadian built truck.
I've heard of this here too. Back in the 70s vauxhall ("our" GM brand) didn't exactly have the best reputation, although best known for motorsport commentating Murray Walker had a sucessful career in marketing, at one point he was called on to help Vauxhall, he ended up at a dealership and the manager said "this is what you are up against" and showed him a car on the ramps, brand new, undergoing PDI, drum on one side, disc on the other (disc would of been an option at this time). Utterly horrendous. If you've got a spare half hour its worth reading up on Walker, he's had an amazing career as a commentator, hes mid 80s now, started commentating in the late 40s/early 50s and although he retired a few years ago he still does the odd piece here and there.
i had a 75 cadillac coupe that had sedan deville badges on it. my '60 chevy 2 dr. sedan had a full impala exterior trim package and dashboard. yup.
My 57 chevy has a 56 frame with the front cut off and pinched with a 57 clip on it. I've had several other 57's that where this way and I recently put one together for a friend thats the same way.
My buddy in Baltimore ordered an El Camino in '67. He wanted a white interior, but that was only available in a GTO. His dad had a few friends in the Brunning Hwy. ***embly plant, sooooooo when the truck came down the ***embly line...white interior parts arrived and were installed. Wonder how the experts at Barrett-Jackson would explain the mixed interior with the build sheet codes ?????
This one's in the one-year catagory. In '55 when I was nine, my dad bought an unsold new '54 Chev ragtop. He talked the dealer down a few bucks over the '53 taillights. I inherited the car in '62 and immediately put on '54s, just a one soda bolt-on swap. I've always wondered why the dealer took the loss rather than do it.
During the late 60's/ early 70s, my Dad was the Sales Manager of the local Chrysler/Dodge dealership here in town. The good years! Anyway, I remember going with him on a Saturday road trip to pick up a customers Slant 6, 2 door Dart. The guy put it into a tire place in his town to have snow tires or something installed and the Mechanic noticed it had different wheel bolt patterns front and rear. Seems it received a rearend on the ***embly line from a V8 Dart or even a 340 Demon that had a bigger bolt pattern than the regular Dart 225 6. The guy got a new rearend ***embly and the proper wheels.
The Olds GMC dealership my dad worked at also sponsered his dragcar. In 70 he got a factory ride from Olds. There was some sorta screwup on a GMC build so it became the tow rig since they could not sell a Squash colored truck with MAROON interior!~ Worse than that was an Alpha that an old boy told me about. It came to the dealership in the mid 50s.......sat for a long time until it sold to the right person. Maroon with seafoam green interior!
New cars hit the lots in Sept/Oct. As said they also had to have the lead time to build parts. The factories would shut down in July for retooling for the new model year. The dealerships would cover the windows so that the new models couldn't be seen until the day they were to be shown, which was the same day all over the country. Big crowds were always on hand to see the new cars and to compare how they had changed from the previous year
got a new 69 impala green on green, green interior, my dad ran the chevy dealership in town and it came off the truck with a plastic covered interior and a brown steering wheel, green dash and everthing green , factory quality checkers would put a simple mismatch part and see it go through, well nobody caught this or they were to lazy to give a damn,
That was when it was actually exciting when the new models came out. We cruised around more than once trying to get a peak at the New model cars before they came out on the showroom floor. When I worked for the Pontiac dealership in Waco Tx in the early 70's we often saw the Ventura models with Nova dash trim. The Chev/GMC trim errors were pretty common too. Usually not discovered until the truck made the lot at the dealer.
Just out of curiousity, how are you determining what matches and what doesn't? Are you relying on part numbers? If so, I don't think that will tell you much, other than when the part was first designed. Casting numbers may tell more of the story but they still won't help if a particular part was cast in 1961 or earlier and not installed on a truck until 1962 (also keep in mind that your truck may have been in a showroom in 1961). Do you have do***entation that lists the engine's serial number? As far as I know "numbers-matching" doesn't apply to Fords. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though. I'd also like to see a side shot of your truck. Is the wheel sitting really far back in the fender opening or something? Actually, wouldn't a '64 Galaxie six be a 223? If so it wouldn't look anything like an 80's six. I call BS as well...
From what I can see in your avatar...it's not that rare or out of the ordinary... I've seen a few trucks like yours with the "square" bed on them. I always wondered why Ford would have done that to a truck. But if I'm not mistaken,in 1961 for the F100,you had a choice of either the Step-side or the Unibody. So what I'm figuring Ford did was,put left-over '60 Fleetside beds on a truck that would have had a Stepside.
H3O,your truck is not a factory freak at all......Ford used the 57-60 styleside beds up through the 1962 or 1963 model year. Why? Who knows! But they only did this on the short-bed trucks that were not unibodys. So your truck isn`t very special after all.
My uncle had a Jimmy that had Chevy emblems on one side, GMC emblems on the other. Tail was Chevy, grill was GMC. A friend of mine restored a Mach 1 Mustang with two different styles of brakes on the left and right sides of the car. Bendix on one side, some other vendor on the other. There were a couple other things on the suspension that were weird, like they were running out of parts, but I forget what exactly. He's the second owner, and could do***ent that it came from the factory that way. The lead seam at the A-pillar also left the factory un-finished. Just a big blob of lead that was never sanded down before being painted. Naturally, since it was a concours resto, he do***ented it and left it that way. I knew a Mopar guy who had a car that came with a mis-matched rear seat. They were both the same color, but the rear was a different pattern. He was the original owner, and didn't notice it for years. I've also heard of many cars that used up the last of the parts from last year's models...engine bits, interior, gauge clusters. That's not uncommon at all. The best I've heard was at the Toledo Jeep plant several years ago. They had one go down the line as a 2-door on one side, and a 4-door on the other, and it got all the way to putting the seats in before they caught it. (Dad ran the payroll department there, so it's not a "friend of a friend had a buddy that said" story.) On a similar note, Mopar wing cars are famous for languishing on dealer back lots for a year or more, until many dealers pulled off the wings, bullet noses and extended hoods and replaced them with conventional pieces (including '70 parts on '69 Chargers), then sold them at a huge loss. -Brad
This stuff happens, I have an original (painted once) matching numbers '66 GTO with factory disc brakes, only thing is Pontiac didn't offer disc brakes on the GTO until '67. Best guess is that since it was a late production car (3rd week of July) somebody got them added.
After working the line for thirty years and one week, I have a comment. Every ***embly plant is run like a seperate business. They buy parts, ***emble vehicles, and sell them. Each plant must turn a profit. Each plant is run by one person in charge. He determines build quality, and he alone. When money is tight, jobs double up in work to eliminate people. Fewer people on the line = less money spent. It also equals less quality. Most managers want to leave with a quality award, so most guys were good to deal with. We usually were told, when short of parts, its OK to upgrade, but never downgrade. I have seen shoddy work, but after being retired nearly ten years, I am proud of the overall work I did. Yes, strange things happen.
This isn't the first story about weirdness just like that I've heard. I've seen a Taurus that was new, but was a FrankenFord as well. Weird, weird **** goes on behind those walls, man... ~Jason
When my dad brought home a new Ranch Wagon in 1955 we noticed that the steering wheel looked different from others we had seen.Wasn't until years later that I realized it came with a T-Bird wheel on it.
Musta had a problem that year... My dad bought a '69 Chevy wagon new in 69, Ordered the 350 (with the 4 bolt mains even!), but the p***enger side turn signal bezel with the engine designation said 327, drivers side was correct... still have the mismatched pair ir somebody needs 'em.
Why? Because the customer was always right! Ford had a little buyer resistance to the new '61 unibodies. So in '62, they offered an additional Styleside (the old '57-'60 bed) for the F-100, 250 and 350. This continued until '64 when a new (better looking! ) Styleside bed was introduce for the F-100 and F-250. The F-350 bed was still the old boxy style through '66. Want more Ford strangeness? Ford of Brazil started building '55 F-500s in '57 and continued the model through the early '60s. In fact, their trucks were always one major body redesign behind the US!
This isn't all that wierd, but I ordered a new '89 t-bird super-coupe and had it in my driveway for several months before I noticed that the body mouldings on the p***enger side were incorrect for the super-coupe. Of course with today's stick-on trim, it was easily corrected at the dealer.
I don't think there is anything strange about your Ford pickup, but it spawned many interesting stories!
My dad was a Lincoln Mercury / Hillman and Sunbeam dealer in the 50's and 60's in M***achusetts. Two odd stories he relayed to me when I was younger were one dealing with leftover year-end Sunbeam products, especially Tigers and Alpine roadsters. If they were'nt off the lot by December (I think this was in 61 or 62 the manufacturer, Roots Group, mailed them new V.I.N. tags with instructions to drill out the old tags and rivet on new ones. Sound pretty shady but thats what they were ordred to do and then sell them as new next year models The other odd tale was in the fall of 66 one of the first three Cougars to arrive on the transporter had a Mustang steering wheel on it and 4 new shiny Mustang wheel covers lying in the trunk waiting to be snapped on durring new car prep! Also one interior door panel sported a Mustang badge, the other door panel was normal Cougar badging. Stuff Happens
My cousin had a '67 vette roadster with a 427 hood, emblems and all. Only thing is it had a small block in it. Turned out the factory was out of small block style hoods when the car was going through.
Has been years ago that I needed a windshield for my 57 Ford custom 300 . Was told by every gl*** place in the state that they were not avalable. After over 6 months of looking an old guy told me to order a back gl*** for a 61 Rambler. Had it in 2 days & it even said FOMOCO down in the corner.
Auto plant stories...Like the guy that got caught stealing steering wheels. He would have been Ok but his buddy ran by slapped him on the back and the horn honked.......
I worked at a Chevy dealer in the 80s. We were always getting Chevy pickups in with GMC grilles, some trucks a GMC emblem on one side Chevrolet on the other, wrong door panel on one side, Guys on the line weren't paying attention,
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