Some of you may remember that I have been researching the history of my 66 fastback. I have discovered some interesting information that I would like to share with you and ask your opinions on what I should do. The car is an Emberglo 66 GT Fastback with Emberglo and Parchment pony interior. Door plate says the DSO was Atlanta and everything matches up.
I have discovered that the car was professionally restored in the late 80s by a shop in the Atlanta area that has since gone out of business. In 1990, this car took first place in the trailered concourse class at Pensacola. I know this because one of the POs sent me the plaque. The owners name on the plaque was Jim Lamb. I believe he was the guy who had the car restored and may have been the owner of the shop as well. I wrote to the Gulf Coast Mustang Club and asked them if they had any records of the event to verify all this. If anyone knows Jim or has any info I would greatly appreciate it.
After finding more POs, I now know that up until 1985, this car was (Dan66 will get a kick out of this!) Turquoise with black GT stripes and a standard blue interior that probably had a DSO of Omaha, Nebraska. I had begun to suspect this after digging very deep into the car and seeing blue in out of the way places. I now believe that the restoration in Atlanta was also a color and interior change to what we see today. This change was extremely well done and very thorough, note the plaque mentioned above. The door tag has been changed to reflect the way the car is today so most of that information is probably suspect. It does seem that the car was in fact a factory GT and the options all seem to go all the way back to the factory as well.
I love this car and this combination is exactly what I wanted. Intend to start some needed body repairs and new paint and I will keep it as it is (Sorry Dan, Turquoise is my 2nd favorite color!). No hard feelings at all toward any POs. The change was done right and I seriously doubt any of them ever had a clue it was not as it came from the factory. I'm the first to ever dig this hard. A lot can happen to these cars over nearly 40 years and I can understand why Jim Lamb (or whoever changed it) would do this and I thank him for the quality work.
Here at last is where I seek your opinions. I know the door tag is wrong and some of the information is gone forever (like build date). Should I leave the tag alone or have it changed back to reflect as much of the original information that I can find? Either way, I can tell you now that if this car ever gets sold I will be giving the full story and history to the buyer (I keep it all in a book). I probably wouldn't volunteer the information to everyone who walks up to the car at a show. Some of you probably think I am stupid for even bringing this up (who would ever know, right?) but I wouldn't want someone to withhold info from me as a buyer and I have no problem with sharing my findings with the good people on this board. I suppose this will hurt the value with some buyers but I'm counting on the quality of the vehicle to be the major selling point (if I ever sell it). So what say you, change the tag or leave it as it is?
Thanks, Drew
