Bad day on the assembly line?

1969reddart said
My Dart has been wrecked at some point. I know the hood and truck lid are not original (blue paint showing through on the underside). The shock openings in the engine compartment are not centered and I always figured it was from a hack repair from the wreck. I ran into a guy at a car show that had a Dart with a very close VIN number to mine, built at the same Los Angeles plant and had the same hack arcing on the shock openings. Apparently, the factory used some kind of arcing device to center the openings on the assembly line...

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As far as the "shock mount holes" being centered, the holes on my two Barracudas are not "dead nuts on," but are centered front to back, but favoring more towards the outside. There is about 3/32" of a gap between the shock mount structure and the fender well panel. Definitely no welds like in your pictures, just three spot welds to the mount.