Also! I forgot as well, when I was still driving the car, I could never leave it locked, the modifications to the door handles, installing a modernised exterior handle deleted the key tumblers, and I would have had no way to get back into my own car. I played around with the idea of installing the stereotypical "secret button" like the one car that was on the "list" from Gone in 60 Seconds. Just walk up, slide my hand in somewhere, and click goes the lock. As I'm disconnecting the old motor, I was acutely aware that the "original" v6 had been replaced, or something, along with the addition of a selection of gauges, so there where a few random wires strewn about the engine bay. He had also installed a fuel pressure gauge, probably to monitor the system with a fresh motor, that included about 4 feet of fuel line extra between the bottom corner of the block and the carb. This caused the car to vapour lock on more than one warm occasion during the summer.
There I go rambling again. Door locks yes. The front grille had some damage that I noticed when I bought the car, just missing a small section of the slats, but I had never taken the chance to inspect it beyond this. Turns out someone before me had the exact same idea. There is a button hidden in behind the grille mounted with the hood release, wired to you guessed it, a pirated door lock release hidden behind the door panel, riveted to the door structure. The wiring is broken at several places, and not supplied with power from anywhere I could find. But none the less I didn't care what was going on in the world, I was as happy as the day I signed the bill of sale to buy the car!
I'm going to go to the local registry office and pay for what's called a VIR search. Pretty much $25 and it tells me where the vin code was registered, what year, and if I'm unbelievably lucky the mileage when it was registered. The search can go back 25 years, if the registries have the records updated to include their previous paper records. Sometimes they do, most times, they stay in their boxes, gathering dust. But one can only hope...