Topic: Bringing my 1972 back to life

[dsmith]

I recently bought a 1972 Mach 1, 351 Cleveland, 2bbl, 3spd. The car is very clean with original paint and interior.
I don't want to goof up and reduce the value of the car. It runs great and has a repair history that indicates if only has 130K original miles.

Here are the questions I need help  with.

Should I stay origin with the original single exhaust?

 Will painting the engine bay be a mistake?

Thanks you for your thoughts!

 

[C5ZZKGT]

IF the car IS indeed all original and in good shape then I'd suggest that you leave it as is and just clean it up and detail it and may be show it as unrestored-so many cars were/are changed from what they came from the factory with that its refreshing to see one like yours at shows.

[J_Speegle]

I recently bought a 1972 Mach 1, 351 Cleveland, 2bbl, 3spd. The car is very clean with original paint and interior.
I don't want to goof up and reduce the value of the car. It runs great and has a repair history that indicates if only has 130K original miles.

130K is not really a low mileage car (unless its a Calif car   but the condition is what is important



[/quote]Here are the questions I need help  with.

Should I stay origin with the original single exhaust?

 Will painting the engine bay be a mistake?
[/quote]

If your attempting to present the car as original and unrestored of course the answer to both is yes.

Owning unrestored cars are a big challenge since you can't really "improve" them much and have to learn to live with their imperfection