Survivor? original? Or numbers matching?

my take. if you look back in the mid late 80's when people had just started to get a real interest in the 'muscle" car, it was noted the mopar was a car that could be easily (ha) documented. 69 up cars with the vin on the eng, trans, body, fender and vin tags, maybe a broadcast sheet.( often missin or in wrong car, corrected etc). could be found to be "real" muscle cars. very few of thgese # cars existed even back then. most were rode hard and put up wet! oring, engine long gone.... there were the hotrod crowd, and the folks that would drop a 383 in a 65 cuda, the people that blew their 383 in the road chicken, went to the bonyard picked up plentiful 440 and changed it over!!! but the mags all jumped on the "real" # car. and the masses went on the hunt for the "in demand" year and model cars, and finding a well used up muscle car with the original drivetrain. but like I said, relatively still existed.

then along comes Galen Glovier ( Mr, Numbers), he prints his books giving all the info on decoding fender tags, casting numbers on all the relevant parts ( exh man, eng blocks, carbs, everything he could find info on). the mags feature the ultimate car to own, the #,s matching original hemi roadrunners, the 440- cudas, there were no such thing as a clone or tribute car back then.

occasionally they would find a true " survivor", original everything, right down to the belts, hoses, maybe even spark plugs. a time capsule. very few of these ever made it to that " title" obviously. then the big time rest/show car classes showed up at the Nats. SOME ( $$$ guys) people got really into restoring ( paying some high end shop) a very desirable model AND hunting all the NOS parts they could find for the resto, some well heeled people would spend tons of $$$ making their " correct" car as correct ( original) as humanily possible.) so the high end guys would try too find he correct parts to make this car correct, that is cast / part no. dated parts, NOS etc.

now the average Mopar guy back in the 90's let say, were the real backbone of the hobby. people generally that had a bunch of project cars, barn full of p[arts, and maybe one decent driver. the first moar price ceiling fell in '91 or 02. at that point all the millionaire speculators sold out, and the market fell on it face. all the better really. original cars were still being bought and restored by the high end crowd, the little guy would have a car he would like to buy, but couldn't because he couldn't find a buyer for any of his projects! the marke value of these cars then slowly rose till it hit the ceiling again before the last crash when the economy fell on it face.

maybe alittle of this history ( or my perception of it) explains some of the thought process that goes into what some people regard as # matching, original, survivor, and whatever. I personally its about what YOU like and want.

point i'm trying to make. if you look at the big time Nats show crowd, it was a contest (ego maybe??) to find a very desirable model ( say 71 hemi cuda), and resort it to as it left the factory condition. more likely that car would have been missing some parts when it was found. say it had headers. so the owner would look or correct exh man with the correct cast # and date. ( or what people thought might be the correct cast date! HA). say he wins the top award, the Gold certificate! its a restored a matching correct car. perhaps it s full of correct parts but NOT those than came on it out of the factory. its not what you would call a true survivor by most of that crowd, it has been restored, ....

long story while the hail storm BLOWS thru!!!!!