Cool stuff Jon. Thanks. Where did the black and white pics of the Cherokee, Californian and Z28 show car come from. Were they in a magazine, a newspaper covering an auto show, or a chevy press release or something? I have never seen any of those pictures.
It does appear to be a round, black shift knob on a manual transmission in the Cherokee with the red interior. The surviving Cherokee with black interior has an automatic transmission. Could this be the reason they built the second one? Knowing that they were going to use the car to pace the Can Am races maybe they didn't want to use a manual transmission for fear of a missed shift or something like that (although with Sir Stirling Moss performing the pace car driving that would have been pretty unlikely). Having an automatic lessons the chances of something going wrong during the pace laps.
In addition, the surviving, newly restored Cherokee does not have the numbers "396" on its racing style gas cap. Also the black and white picture of the rear end seems to lack the little light that shines on the rear license plate that appears on the surviving one.