Oh, yeah,
no debate there, I've always liked the 70-71 E bodies, had a 70 gran coupe in the family for over 30yrs! (Still miss that car!)

But, I guess I am wrong, not the first or last time, BUT help me understand this so I can learn something new, I'm not trying to argue just understand..

First, I naturally would've thought-
if the orig motor went bye-bye, the orig. trans. did as well, pretty common, Ive seen it many, many, many, many times, so why isn't it possible this trans is from a different E body?

Second, While i agree that its odd for an abusive Previous owner to alter numbers, if the trans came from another, different well taken care of car, (i.e. wrecked) it now makes sense.
BUT when has a previous owner ever needed a reason to do something odd?
We all know about those "previous owner horror stories" heck! I'm in one of those now lol, previous owners did really senseless, ignorant things and unfortunately "THOSE" previous owners never needed a reason to do senseless things...

Third, Those #'s CLEARLY look restamped, NOT factory,
BUT, even IF they are, why in the world would they have to restamp the "OB2" over and over again???? I count at least 5-6 different, repeated, "O B 2" strikes each, why? That prefix did not change, so THAT doesn't make sense to me.
The ONLY possible reason I can see for the restrike of the "OB2"
is to "match" the other altered stamps.

Forth, I've never seen another with stampings like that (orig from the factory)
seen them plenty of times on cloned or faked cars though....
Not saying that yours is, obviously its not,
I just meant that whenever I've seen altered #'s, like that^
they were changed to hide, conceal, clone, cover-up or "create" a #'s matching car that isn't.
We've all seen them before.

Explain it to me please, is it just that there's no paint on the shift plate, correct font (easily done), lots of grime on it and a white "x" that makes it all legit?
Is that enough?
Thanks