I had some (minimal) involvement in the re-creation; my role was to get Dave Miller hooked up with some of the other engineers who had been present for the Long Lead.
When I first started at Milford (1986) my officemate, John M, was the fleet coordinator for light duty trucks. He was well connected and quite charismatic, and had been there for that event.
In the mid 1980's John had rediscovered the engine which had been on display at the show, both as a visual reference but also as a backup engine in case something happened to an engine in one of the cars. It was (also) an all aluminum solid lifter 454.
After some horse trading he was able to wrangle the storage tag away from the engine's "owner" in exchange for the use of a Suburban for the weekend.
We had a white 1985 shortbox stepside pickup with, at that time, an LS7 engine in it, as sort of an under the table team building/morale booster toy. The aluminum motor eventually found its way into our little pickup. We had it going 10.70's before we were done, running tune/test at Martin, Milan and Stanton, and local Super Chevy events.
Dave interviewed John in his home but I fear he may have gotten more of a sly "...I have no idea what you are talking about..." kind of response.
K
