Back around '78 there was a very nice '66 SS396 coupe in my home town. It had been just imported from the Carolinas I think. When I saw the car up close about a year later I was disgusted when I saw an all-vinyl bench seat and a column-shifted Powerglide. Later I learned that stuff was totally legit. What did happen to the drivetrain was that way back during the mid-seventies fuel crisis a mild small block and Turbohydramatic were swapped in place of the original engine & trans. That kind of stuff was not uncommon back then, and people weren't as concerned about a numbers match drivetrain as has been the case in the last 15 years.
What Dale said about the 'Malibu SS' sounds correct to me when you are talking about Canadian-built Chevelles. Some were sent overseas; in fact a few years back (November 2001) there was talk on Team Chevelle about a '66 Malibu SS with a 230 six brought over from Norway. It was originally built in Oshawa with a metric speedometer and sent to Belgium as a new car.
Actually I think that yellow '66 SS396 looks sweet, but there are enough red flags to really make one think twice. When the dealer says
it originally had a smallblock, you have to remember that the car may have had a smallblock swapped in sometime and was like that when the dealer bought it to make money on. Definitely there were no U.S.-made '66 Chevelle Super Sports with small blocks from the factory. There were supposedly an unspecified number of L-79 350-horse 327s installed into various other '66 Chevelles. I have personally never seen one or heard of one.
Personally I don't get off on picking apart someones car, but when the owner is so bold as to say that it is a perfect restoration then they are setting themselves up for criticism from the masses. Actually a situation like this can be a great opportunity for some education.
