OK gang - listen up for this week's puzzler (except I'm not sure I have the
answer). A friend of mine located a 74-1/2 rubber-bumpered GT for me.
Rare car - great host for a V8 transplant - right?? Well, wrong. Nice,
straight BGT, not too rusty, good floors and castle sections, runs well,
excellent oil pressure, tight driveline. No tampering - even all the
original EPA stuff is still there. . . Except what do I see while peering
under the bonnet? The front rubber bumper is secured with two crude
home-made angle iron brackets coming in through the old parking light
openings. A quick look at the rear reveals that the chrome-bumper style
body metal is still there beneath the tail lights.
This is a chrome bumpered car that has been converted! Here are the
numbers - can anybody shed some light on this? Body #GBUD 824691,
Commission number G23D 079157, VIN #GHD5UE 358515. The door plate says
8/74. I thought that by that time they had switched to rubber bumper.
This is definitely a chrome bumper body shell: old style fire wall,
radiator apron, front and rear fenders and valances... the fact that it
even has a body number... but did this come down the production line
*after* they began building rubber bumper cars? It even appears to have
the higher ride height - I compared it to a known authentic rubber bumper
GT (sans engine) and the distance from the top of the rear wheel well to
the ground is the same.
I've looked at the production data in the Moss catalog but it doesn't show
the two breaks in the '74 model year production. Why would a PO want to
switch from chrome to rubber? The inside of the rear bumper had to be cut
away to make it fit below the tail lights. The price is very right - I
might buy it anyway and change the bumpers back.
Thanks,
Allen Bachelder
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Allen H. Bachelder, Associate Professor of Trumpet
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Department of Music, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0240
E-mail: Allen.Bachelder@vt.edu, Phone: 703-231-6713, Fax 703-231-5034
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