The other interesting thing about the (formerly) flame painted car (VIN 142XXX) is that it was built a few days away from mine (141XXX) and the VINs are within several hundred units of each other having been shipped in mid July 1973.
When my Formula was being examined at MCACN the judges indicated that the exhaust was very odd as there were no resonators and no embossed markings/ribbing/part numbers on the mufflers, like the 1,700 mile car (VIN 144XXX) which shipped two weeks after the flamed car and my car left the factory. There was a lot of head-scratching with that since the exhaust did not appear to have ever seen a bolt turned on it, but also did not resemble the traditional exhaust and resonator/muffler system that was supposed to be on the car.
Well, it turns out that the flame car has the exact same no-resonator exhaust and generic looking muffler on its 11,000 mile factory installed system as my car. So it appears that there were different suppliers and batches of exhaust systems for these cars installed whenever they arrived at the assembly line.
Flame car's exhaust:
