That floor brace looks like it made that excursion come to a sudden halt!

Ahhh good stuff.  Please don't be offended by my post - I've had too many bad experiences with rust over the years, being on the east coast, so I tend to be finicky where rust is concerned.  I've seen too many cars that looked solid until you poked a screw driver through the frame or floor and were showered with rust flakes...

I know you are a straight-up honest guy (despite what that nasty old Carl says... lol) and would completely trust your word on it.

As I said, that's one nice looking car, and very interesting with the early VIN.  I wonder if it was one of the first sold directly to the public?  Typically the low VINs were almost pre-production - working out the production bugs, and some would have been filtered off as show/display vehicles.  But whatever, it's just a nice looking old car.