I am looking at a 68 firebird convertible and the tag on the firewall has the Trim 257 and color G-8. I see those as gold trim, 'April Gold' exterior and gold top. The only thing is that the car is red with white interior and top. And the owner says its all original and never been restored. Is there any explanation for this?

Yeh - the current owner is full of "stuff", knowingly or not. Your car has the received the typical "Resale Red" paint job somewhere in it's life.

Is this the ORIGINAL OWNER? The problem a great many people run into is that the person you may be buying the car from has never made major changes to a car, but the owners ahead of them did. They buy the car under the lie that it's "completely original", don't care enough to check the facts, and then they pass this "lie" onto you.

Trust the numbers not the owner. Check and make sure the vin plates match.

Question is, do you care if it's original? If you want an original car, or the owner is looking for high $ you'll want to pass it up. But if it looks nice, decent price, and you just want to enjoy driving the car, don't pass it up just because the color isn't right, but one important thing to consider though is this..

If the stuff that's easy to tell is not correct, what about the rest? Are you paying for a 400 that really was a 350 with a new engine and hood? Speaking from painful experience, your best bet in this case is send the vin number to Pontiac Historic Services and have them run the numbers for the original build. It's $45 well spent considering what you could overspend on an incorrect car.

By any chance are you located in the Detroit area?

The car COULD be all original, but w/ a new paint job...Owner may think thats "all original" , since nothing else was changed...
just a longshot, but Salmon is proib. closer in his estimation! lol
Bjorn