No way there was an "X-Garage" in Watkins Glen. As stated earlier, the real X-Garage was at the Dearborn Proving Ground on Oakwood Blvd. Drive a few miles down the Southfield Freeway and you have Engine Manufacturing Development Operations, where the cammer engines (and most other prototype engines) were hand-assembled. Roughly between those two facilities was the Pilot Plant.
I worked in Ford Engineering and I was in those facilities many, many times for projects. On any development program, you had lots of technicians, prototype mechanics, fabricators, engineers, drafting room guys, etc. working together. All of those folks were within a few minutes of each other in Dearborn.
Who in their right mind would ship such a high profile project to the backwaters of upstate New York? All of the Top Secret projects I ever heard of stayed right in the Dearborn area. Sometimes we'd do unusual stuff at Roush or McLaren Engines if we wanted it out of sight, but it was always within a close drive for any team member. Big companies run on meetings!
This story holds no water at all. I bet that "original" car doesn't even have the factory cast iron SOHC headers. Some poor buyer is in for a big disappointment.
- Bill