I don't want to ignore you as a user or even this thread....but I'd like to just "not" see an LS in anything not in a GM body. ..
Here’s my two cents on the build, your comment, and my opinions thereof:
I myself would never do this to that car if it were mine. I’m a purist and a Slant fan. The thing is—and this is very important—IT’S NOT MY CAR!
Just because I wouldn’t do that to my car (’66 Dart 170 2-door that I in fact will not do this to), as a fan of Mopars in specific, cars in general, and the idea of building a car (well) to suit one’s needs, I support this builder 100%, and thus will not poo-poo on it. If I were to meet this person at a car show, I bet he (or she) wouldn’t poo-poo on my car with all its original parts. Why would I do that to someone else?
I think people sometimes get too caught up in in their own way of thinking and forget that hot-rodding has a long tradition of being creative, and cross-breeding goes back to folks throwing Buick and Cadillac (and other powerful OHV) V8’s into Model A’s. This is no different, and it’s not “sacrilege.” I might understand if it were a D-Dart or something really rare, but it’s a run-of-the-mill early A-body. Even if it were something more unique than what it is, it’s NOT YOUR CAR! (I said that twice now.)
I always appreciate any car where its build execution is done well—that’s the spirit of hot-rodding. I’m more of a get it running and drive it kinda guy. Even putting a 4-speed into my own car is a major ordeal (that I love, but my fab skills aren’t great).
People cry about the fact that doing an LS swap is the “easy way out.” I wonder how many of these folks have ever tried to execute such a feat? Granted, in the long run, it’s cheaper, and parts are more plentiful, but it doesn’t look “easy” to me.
Seems that most folks who do this swap do it to make a daily out of the car, whereas a good amount (though in all fairness, not all) purists and restorers are making car show trailer queens. I bet this builder is gonna drive the **** out of this car.
Another point that folks seem to forget is that whenever someone like this yanks out the original drive train to do an LS swap, it typically puts all the discarded parts on the market for us purists. That’s win-win. I have a ’66 AMC Ambassador 880 2-door sedan that I will eventually sell when done (AMC guys are generally exponentially way more uptight about this than Mopar guys if you can believe that). Some guy in town has a ’66 Ambo 990 that he LS’ed and dumped his old parts on CL. It had the exact same drivetrain as mine. For $350, I scored a running date-matching engine, trans, all clutch parts (which are one year only items), a rad, and just about everything I was willing to cart off. I’d say I scored big, and if I were in the whiney purist camp, well, wouldn’t that be contradictory?
Another guy had a ’67 Rebel he did the same thing to (but it was a V8 car to begin with). I bought his junk up and made some money flipping it. Again, win-win.
In summary, I’d like to see a little more love in the online community towards things we ourselves would not necessarily do to their own cars. The irony isn’t lost on me that this kind of banter almost never goes on at shows, because the folks who diss other folks tend to be of the keyboard warrior type of personality. I bet when these folks are at car shows, they just move on if they see something they don’t like. I see all kinds of **** at shows I wouldn’t do, and if I don’t have anything nice to say about it, I move on. It’s not that hard to do the same thing online, and just scroll on by. I suppose if you are really that undisciplined, you could block the user, but just doing so without announcing your intent might be a cooler thing to do—just a thought.
I apologize if I came off as being harsh to you and poo-flingers in general, and I really meant no disrespect, but when folks start baggin’ on other folks’ builds, I find that to be of bad form, and something that definitely needs to be called out.
Rant over. Y’all be safe and enjoy your day.
