Engine Options, Restoration Direction

I left the engine discussion pondering the possibility of a conversion to diesel. I did some research and there is a guy who took a GMC across the pond (England) and converted it to diesel. It wasn't an easy task. I don't think I have the time, tools or expertise to do a conversion like this. Their conversion ended up looking a bit like a reinvention of the wheel. I don't feel the need to chart new territory with this conversion.

I will try to go a different direction from a lot of the restorations that have been done before mine. I am trying to keep things on the interior as close to original in appearance as possible. I will be re-doing the mechanicals (electrical, plumbing, insulation) to avoid catastrophic failure due to materials that have exceeded their useful life expectancy. There is no need to keep wiring or plumbing original and risk having to re-rebuild a system because I was just being cheap or lazy to replace it with better than original. I do want the keep the funky feel of the original interior. I just love the look of those wild ass colors. They just don't decorate stuff like that anymore (most would say that is a good thing, but I am not most, and definitely not normal). I have just started to my search for a source of the original fabrics, so who know how it will end up. Most of the GMC's that have been redone used updated styles. It seems like I am a bit of an odd ball when it comes to this, so I may not be able to, but I'll sure try.