1. First of all I find it interesting that people behind their key boards that did not have a face to face conversation with the original owner as I did can question his memory. The guy is not senile, is still driving and seem very sharp to me.

2. My bad. I said 318 he said V8 in the 65 Barracuda.

3. The guy and I talked fro quite a while and he was a car lover. He still has the 78 Ford pick up he bought new and was driving it. I still looks like new with 300 miles on it. He was spouting facts about it as well. The guy obviously has a great memory.

There were many Corvette special built cars for execs. that survived mainly because more people revered Corvettes from the beginning of them. They did not simply become just old cars that ended up in the junkyard like an A/C equipped 4 speed 440 car likely did.

The factory would build nearly anything a customer was willing to pay for to make a sale. There were only a coulpe of things for them to consider. If the parts were standard readily available but not necessarily available in a particular model they would build it if the customer would wait for the scheduling. If there was a concern that the special order may have a negative effect warrany wise for the corporation then likely it would not get built unless someone internally would approve it. Say a factory exec or corporate officer wanted a 4 speed 440 with A/V for themselves or a family memeber then it would get built. For the average customer off the street likely did not happen. In the case of the /6 manual trans 1966 Charger, why not? The Coronet built on the same platform was available that way. All the parts were available and a 4 speed fits the same bellhousing as a 3 speed.

What the factory would and would not do is pretty easy to figure out it is simple common sense as to what they would and would not do.

Ask Doug Hammer how many 69 Chargers he has on file that came from the factory with a 383 magnum and then try and find it as an option in any dealer info. It was supposed to be a Super Bee and RR engine only but there were a lot of them factory installed at the factory.