Puts me in mind of a couple of tales, one of them I may have told here before.

I had a friend who was not a car guy, and definitely not a hot rodder, but he liked to think he was well versed in the knowledge of most stuff. Early in our acquaintance, we somehow got to discussing cars, and my long experience with things mechanical, and he told me of his Dad's Jaguar XKE with an "Offy" engine in it. I thought that was an unusual thing, and told him I would sure like to see it, but he said his Dad was not too much on showing it off, and that he seldom even uncovered it and took it out of the garage. So years went by, and I never could get a look at that car. After his Dad passed away, he asked me to go with him to help his Mom with something, and took that opportunity to show off what he hoped would be his Jag. So we went to the garage and uncovered a very nicely preserved XKE, and flipped the front to expose a really clean, well done Ford Windsor swap, with all of the shiny go fast stuff, air cleaner, valve covers, and intake with the Offenhauser trademark cast into them. I just didn't have the heart to explain it to him, so I just said "wow, that's nice", and let it go. As it turned out, his Mom sold the car to some guy she got wind of through her nephew, so my friend went without - probably just as well.

Another fella I was acquainted with had a '39 Ford sedan with a "universal hot rod engine" in it; had headers on it that gave him the opportunity to yank on a few chains at shows and cruises. He got some spark plug wire looms from an early Olds and adapted them to Chevy tin valve covers and ran the plug wires over the top of the valve covers. That caused a lot of head scratching, discussion, and quite often, arguments among the hoi-polloi at gatherings; it was always amusing to sit back and watch.