Originally posted by Marky:
This is easy ... VIN number, end of debate. The rest is just opinions. It is what it is.



Well, if you take the engine out, it would be a "non-numbers matching" SVT. You might find, in the junkyard, an "SVT shell" with no other useful SVT parts on it. It's value would be meaningless to any but the most dedicated collector who was trying to create (50 years from now) a trailer queen from scratch.

It would be easy to build an SVT replica out of a 98+ car, but you'd have to bill it as such when you went to sell it, no matter how many SVT parts were hanging off of it.

Of course, this is all collector BS, which I respect but am just not into. I'll never fully understand a million dollar 69 Camaro as anything but an inflated market that will pop once the Baby Boomers start having their post-mortem estate auctions, but I understand that car enthusiasm takes many forms. Give me a "10-footer" that I can drive, any day.

I also doubt that anyone cares, but I could be wrong. Think of what an original, faithful, pristine, Bondurant SVT might bring 40 years from now? Or a BTCC Mondeo? Once a few of us have made our millions and can afford the nostalgic indulgence?

An SVT with a different engine, even a replacement "SVT Engine," is an SVT with a footnote.


Function before fashion. '96 Contour SE "Toss the Contour into a corner, and it's as easy to catch as a softball thrown by a preschooler." -Edmunds, 1998