Right. So how many decades had passed from '74 since you bought it? Somebody could have swapped the spindles side for side decades ago, it would look the same. The car is 49 years old, assuming something is the same as it was when it left the factory shouldn't be the default. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. All the manuals say they were to the front '73 to 76.
Well, somebody swapped the spindles side for side at some point. And it can't be "correct", you've got 73+ disks on a '68. Nothing original about it.
And regardless, it doesn't matter. The factory did in fact put the calipers to the rear in 67-72, and in the front from 73-76, so you can't say the factory way was best because the factory did it both ways depending on the year. Even if '73 was a transition year, they were to the front on the majority of the 73-76 cars.
