Kevin, I recently found some old pics from a January 2006 on-line ad for an original, I mean ORIGINAL 1966 Beaumont Sport Deluxe. Sold new in Listowel, it is an L34 M13 (HD 3-spd) car with 3.73 Positraction, original paint, 28,000 original miles. Aztec Bronze with black interior. I don't know if you may have seen them before or not. I think it was posted here years ago. I've got 57 pictures of it from the ad.
Over the years I have come across a few of the floor shift 3 spd M/T shifter bodies for the 68/69 A body models. ( two of them were NOS). I actually used them to convert to 4 spd (as finding a NOS 4 spd ITM shifter is now impossible.) . There is a difference in one of the two levers ( its double in thickness to fill in the space that 3 levers would take up in a regular 4 spd shifter body)
The 3-speeds, if the h.d. version, were cast iron & strong, plus 1 less shift to make during a heads-up race.
There was a Butternut Yellow Baltimore-built '69 Chevelle SS396 that was sold new out of Maurice Carter Chev-Olds in Hamilton, ON. What it had & what it didn't have was telling.
Malibu sport coupe, SS 396, manual steering, tinted glass all around, buckets, no console, L78 396 375-horse, MC1 h.d. Dearborn 3-speed. 4.10:1 Posi, AM radio, rear aux speaker, rear antenna. With 4.10s you could run the quarter near redline through the traps and you wouldn't miss the extra shift. The car ended up in Parry Sound, restored with a bored out LS6 & M21. Tragically it was wrecked back around 2014 when an 800 lb Black Bear ran into the side of it on Highway 11, putting the car into a spin on gravel like ball bearings, eventually landing on it's roof, which was flattened to the seat level. Tim the owner was extremely lucky he wasn't killed.
Incidentally the h.d. 3-speed was a Borg-Warner T16 from 1965 through '68, then in '69 the RPO code changed from M13 to MC1, signalling a switch in suppliers from Warner to Ford. Yes, Chevrolet was the last division to switch to the Dearborn trans, as Chevy & Ford are arch rivals. The Warner has a 2.41 low, the Dearborn 2.42:1 low and was already used by B-O-P. It was officially the 303 RAT for GM, Ford also made for their own use a 303 RAN & a 303 RUG for up to 5 litres & over 5 litres, respectively.
Hey, GM was already using Ford glass. L-O-F is Libby Owen Ford.
__________________
67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never touched.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
