Never had any problem with clones when they were done nice. Heck my 1st restoration back in the early 80’s was my mother’s Cutlass Supreme vert I did some cloning to make it resemble a 442. It’s all bolt on, SAME platform, just adding more options. Restoring my ’63 Fury, have some Sport Fury features I added.
I took notice of when these muscle cars started ballooning in price in the later 90’s and just got crazier later on. They became attractive to well-off people overseas leading to massive exportation of these cars. And the wealthy here (good number of non-wrencher types with money) finding them as something to collect having everything else they could want…hedge funders, pro-athletes, movie stars, with cash to burn driving up the prices. Who pays $3.5 MILLION for a Cuda also having a collection of 20 more?
Agree, the market for the most sought-after rides and some of their clones, have left the planet for the majority of the population. On the other hand, those that restored them, often put in a LOT of time and cash. I sometimes find it hard to believe the money I dumped into mine having done a lot of the work in my garage.
