I recently bought a 66 Coupe from a family friend during my childhood. The friend had owned the car since the late 70's and had been restoring in his garage for over 25 years. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years ago and it is in its advance stages. Unfortunately, I have not been in contact with the family in years, and his family was not interested in cars. Therefore, I can't determine any of the things that he learned about the car. His wife recently came to the conclusion that she must sell the car in order to support his medical bills. She had it appraised and I bought the car very reasonably, especially in light of the amount of work that he had completed on the car - entire motor and suspension completed and most interior work completed. The problem I have is that I am trying to figure out what were original options. For instance, one of my older brothers remembers that when the family friend brought the car home in 78 that the car had a 350 small block motor in it. However, the car had a big block hood and 427 emblems on it, and the original owner had told family friend that the car was a big block but that it had blown up. The family friend did find a 66' vette big block to put in the car, but I am wondering how I can determine if the car is an original big block car. The other curious thing that I have discovered is that the 427 emblems do not appear to go through the fenders (stuck on with adhesive), but I can see that the front end has been painted as their are very obvious blend marks at the back of the fenders. All of this work was done in the 70s as the family friend did not touch the outside of the car. The car does have a rear sway bar. Regarding the other options, how can determine their originality: 1) power steering, 2) power windows, 3)power brakes, and 4) side pipes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: 66 Coupe Car History
Bob - you can search the archives for more details as well, but some other things to look for are the code numbers on the differential carrier to verify the unit is a BB code, it should have the HD stub axles (yokes) on the differential that use caps versus Ubolts for retention, the fuel line on the passenger side will be forward of the small block location and the bend is more of an right angle versus 45 degree angle. Also, the radiator support and radiator are totally different, the BB uses a copper/brass and the SB uses an aluminum stacked design. If the car was an L72 425HP, it would have had TI ignition, and would have 3 holes in the LH front fender inner skirt left of the radiator support for the amplifier module, and a ground wire goes over to the radiator support and there would be evidence of a star washer ground and thread marks in the hole in the support. The firewall would also not show evidence of any holes for the ballast resistor being mounted.
I am sure I am missing things, but these are a few you can check for....Craig
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