RM Auctions: CSX 3228

[Historybuff]

I read the auction house description and
note that they say one of the previous owners, when he picked up the car ,d noticed a 427 engine sitting in the garage so took
the car with that engine instead of the 428 which, at the time, probably seemed a wise choice as far as power and living up to the legend of the 427 Cobra. My question is--how important will it be in the coming years (as far as value?) to have the block that bears the same number stamp that the car was built with? I come to ask this question because I come from the Ferrari world where, in the earlier Enzo-era cars, it makes all the differance in the world in values , for instance that the 1957 410 Superamerica that Gooding is offering at their auction has matching chassis and engine numbers. I would think in the Cobra world that with a 427-engined 427 Cobra , the engine number matching the chassis number as originally built will become important sooner than such will be the case with 427 smooth hood street cars like CSX 2338. I predict that the first wave of correctness still to come by, say, 2014, will be to reinstall 428 engines in the ones that came with 428s but having never seen a title for a 428-engined Cobra 427 , I don't know if the engine number is even listed so if it's not , re-installing a 428 of the proper model year may be enough to get the car back to historical correctness. It may not be possible to find the original 428 block, which may have been melted down as scrap metal, those being more common than side oiler 427s.

To compare to airplanes, I think there were P-51s manufactured after WWII ended. My argument would be that it's incorrect to offer these for sale
as "WWII planes" since they were built after the war ended. I would call those "WWII-era planes." (Note: New Zealand placed an order for 320 P-51s just before the end of WWII. In 1945, 30 were delivered. These were left in their packing cases until 1950--so to me these are not WWII fighters but WWII-era fighters...)