https://www.autoevolution.com/news/first-t5-swap-ever-one-of-one-1986-chevy-monte-carlo-ss-has-a-surprise-gm-never-offered-225693.html

 

I'll admit I didn't open it at first given the T5 in the modern context- a relatively mediocre transmission with torque limits that could barely handle a v6. Id initially thought 'who would bother putting a t5 in anything these days'.

But that article was pretty neat being an original conversion from back in the 80s. Glad to hear the new owner decided to keep it intact, that's got potential to be worth some good money to the muscle car crowd with the ultra limited quantity done.

I wonder how complicated the actual swap was. The intro makes it seem like it was pretty simple with off the shelf GM parts, but I wonder what drove the costs so high to make it not worthwhile to continue to build customer cars. Surely the dealer knew the exact parts cost before starting, so it must've been labor intensive.