1971MONTE

Darren, car looks great as usual. First, I am not a fan of fender skirts or wires etc. but it somehow fits the whole package on your car and looks perfect. I am helping my Dad build a 70 convertible and it is slow going but hopefully will look as nice as yours a few years down the road. I also love your last comment about parting Chevelles for parts for our Montes, that is priceless. So many Montes have gone to their grave too early just to make a Chevelle or some A-body car better. I have even seen threads on Buick and Olds sites about parting montes for the 12 bolt, rear suspension braces and/or f-41 arms and sway bars and of course the disc brake setups, buckets, elec. windows, tilt columns, etc. Also, the steering wheel is the smaller(14.5") sport wheel from around a 75-77 Olds. Starfire. You can also tell by the faux stitching that it is the smaller wheel. The 70-77 Cutlass/442 sport wheel is 15.5". I have few of the 15.5" wheels and the Oldsmobiles to go with them.

I have seen and owned and currently own rubber floor mat cars, no Monte Carlos though. I pulled parts from a 71 Chevelle 4 door, V8/auto car with remote driver mirror. I saw one Heavy Chevy with a rubber mat. I owned a 71 Nova, 90K 307/2bbl glide w/power brakes and a/c with rubber floor mat. I have a 70 F-85(base Cutlass) that originally had a rubber mat and my 55K mile 70 F-85 W-31 has a factory rubber floor mat with documentation, aftermarket had been installed over the factory mat at some time in the past. It is not very common and many probably had carpet installed at a later date so it would be difficult to know how many came with a rubber mat.

Dan, yes, it was built at the Van Nuys plant. I have not taken the buckets or back seat apart so I may still find another sheet. My Dad also has a 70 SS he has had for over 20 years and it was also from CA. It already had 2 build sheets with it when we picked it up so we never looked for any more, can't remember if we recovered the back seat. I do not know where the PO found the 2 sheets he provided. This car is original Cranberry Red black vinyl top, black buckets and console, tach and gauges, elec. windows, a/c, tilt wheel, rally wheels(all 5 wheels original and date correct). All numbers match and not a thing was missing from the car and the guy had a lot of NOS parts with it when my Dad bought it. This and the fact that it had literally no rust at all made it any easy restore.

Glad to see another Monte SS saved! Good luck with the project, I will be following your progress. When I found my last 70 SS it was a complete together car, not running though. It had everything including air ride tank etc. but no build sheet but seeing everything complete I knew it was a real SS. Got a great deal on the car with a 70 parts car. I stripped the interior completely out, including headliner, panels, dash package tray etc. with no sign of a build sheet. I now knew the only possibility of a build sheet would be on top of the gas tank. I dropped the tank a little and could not see much as there was a fine layer of dust so I got a flashlight and saw what looked to be a letter or number. I pulled down on the tank some more and wiped some dust off a perfect build sheet dead center of the tank right up against the sending unit. There was an old piece of tape still there but was barely holding and the sheet came out and you could not ask for a better build sheet that sat on top of the gas tank since 1969!