I think people realise that yeah you can drop a V8 in anything, but that doing it properly costs $20k+, so if you pay $15k+ extra when someone else has already done it you’re ahead even though that makes for one expensive GT.
I have zero idea what that R-Sport head is worth, it’s gotta be a helluva lot if it’s B23E era and DOHC and an OEM option. But a lot of people could easily fit one to a GT (or not pay that much to a mechanic to get it done) if they got their hands on a good one, and it won’t cost that extra in all the ancillary bits.
So the car would be worth the value of a GT plus the value of the head, whereas that 282 was worth the value of a GT plus the value of the engine & box PLUS what it costs to get it all fitted MINUS quite a few thousand cos everyone underestimates the cost & effort of that conversion.
You might get a fair bit more for the GT with the R-Sport head if you had a sales sheet or invoice or something showing it was bought brand-new with all that stuff. There’s defo a coolness factor in something rare like that having been bought brand new, some would pay for that I reckon!
