70 340 Duster - steering column question?

My buddy bought a very nicely restored, #'s matching 340, 4spd FY1 Duster recently - I went over to see it last night and he showed me this on the steering column.

Looks to have come out of an automatic car, they didn't do this at the factory did they?

As you would expect, now he's nervous about the car originally being an automatic and converted over to a 4spd - any way of telling for sure? I don't trust fender tags and the build sheet is unreadable.

How did they alter the floor pans for the 4spd cars?

Thanks :prayer:
Dave