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How can you say NOM is not going to be a penalty in this case? The only people interested in spending big bucks on this car are going to be the numbers nazis, and if they're paying all these big bucks for a car with some special numbers stamped in a few pieces of sheet metal, why wouldn't NOM be a penalty? If you're selling a car with a non-original 318 in it, okay whatever, nobody cares that much. But when it's the last 6-pack car and the original engine is missing, that is a bit of a let down.

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This has been pretty well addressed by the posts above this one but let me add this. How many low production high performance cars have you chased down? I can assure you that Dave's point that most muscle cars from the 60s and 70s do not retain their original engine is true in my limited experiance.

Of the muscle cars I have owned, the majority had non matching engines. This started with my first car back in 1972. Some day I will sit down and try and figure out the percentage breakdown but off the top of my head I would guesstimate that less than 40% of my cars have had their original numbers matching engines. I have owned a number of Cars, mostly Mopars but a healthy number of GM products and a few Fords. Several run of the mill pieces and a few fairly low production models as well.

Keep in mind I started playing with these cars long before the internet and long before the big three reproduced any blocks, heads or crate engines. I used to buy pretty well any hemi part I could lay my hands on because you simply had little choice and selection was very limited. I had friends in Detroit asking all of their friends and relatives to see what parts they managed to hoard or knew about.

There were many more Hemi and 440-6 cars running around with 383s in them than you could shake a stick at. Not only were original engines destroyed in the line of high performance duty, many were removed during the energy crisis due to their 8-10 MPG. Do you know how hard it was to sell a high performance car in the mid and late 70s? My first hemi car was for sale for almost a year before I happened along on vacation in sunny California to look at it. The seller was very motivated and was not going to let me leave without it.

So I guess I became accustomed to settling for non numbers original musclecars. As long as the VIN and body numbers were good I was on it. It is pretty easy to sit back today and demand numbers matching this and that from the comfort of your computer screen.

Here is one for you numbers matching dreamers. Would you pass on a 1970 Hemi Challenger RT 4 speed car that was a running car with a 383? Ok it only had a rust-free fender tag, no sheet that I could find.

Maybe to you guys I should have passed but I paid him his $800 and it home.

I would have paid more but it was a non-shaker car!