I've always been amused how many people will come up to me in parking lots or at the gas station and start talking about my car. "I had one of these Dodge Lancers! Mine was a '60 with the 318 Hemi." Or "Man, these Darts are neat! I learned to drive in one just like this, but I kept burning out the transmission; it had the 2-speed without water cooling." Or "I used to own a '72 Valiant station wagon with the 170 slant-6, factory air, and 4-speed transmission. Had the build sheet and everything. Really rare car. Never say never!". Except for that last example, most of these kinds of schlemiels don't intend to tell fibs or defraud anyone. They're just displaying the unfortunate but true fact that the human memory only feels like a video camera. In fact it's a good bit less reliable than that, more like a spazzed-out six-year-old with attention deficit disorder taking notes on lined newsprint with a fat orange crayon. Much of what we are absolutely sure we remember seeing, doing, hearing, smelling, tasting…never actually happened -- at least not the way we remember it.
There is a mountain of good quality evidence against the notion of any Feather Dusters or Dart Lites leaving any Chrysler build plant with a V8 engine. The burden of proof is on the individual claiming all that evidence is wrong. He'll need to support his assertion with more than just a claim of having seen such a car.
I don't have a dog in this particular fight, but one thing to keep in mind is that however many you-can't-officially-get-that-combo cars Chrysler built, and they built a fair number of them, that practice stopped very abruptly once emissions regulations came into full force, i.e., 1971-'72. Each and every vehicle, engine, transmission, rear axle package had to be tested and type-approved for emissions and fuel economy compliance. Throwing any engine and transmission and rear axle into a car just because it would physically fit and the factory had the equipment on hand was no longer legal, and penalties are extremely steep for the company who does it. In that context, the notion is ridiculous that Chrysler would do it for the buyer's $167.20 or whatever the 318 cost vs. the 225 in the '76 A-body.
Another thing to keep in mind: It is not possible to prove a negative (go on, prove to me that purple alligators don't exist! I dare ya!) so trying to do so is a fool's errand.
rayer:
