When I bought my 71 Malibu I made the mistake of buying the car sight unseen. It was advertised as being frame off and did look like it was from the pictures. The car already had everything I was looking for a BB, 4 speed, and 12bolt with a non functional cowl hood and a different color than your common red, blue or black. Mine is Cottonwood Green the color it was born with. After a 3 year extreme cleaning, detailing, and personalization of the car I finally got it registered this past July. I'm not the type to put SS emblems on a car that is not truly an SS so my car will wear the Malibu Emblems proudly. Take your time, if you get discouraged walk away from it and just go back to it with a different frame of mind. I've gotten to the point where I thought I was loosing my touch with these cars because of things not working out right but what I'm finding is it isn't me it's the junk parts that you buy today. My car has around 400 miles on it and I have had 3 brand new parts fail on the car already (radio, combination brake valve, and speedometer cable). Here's a slideshow of just some of before and after pics along with changes I made to make it different.
http://s814.photobucket.com/user/12b...ogress/Changes