My 70 has a console and the large black shifter ball. I was always told that the leather one wasn't used till 1971, but check out this picture. You can't see the printing due to the flash but this is a advertisement for 1970 firebirds and it has the leather style shifter, (and no console). In the photo, the center appears to be red. I can't tell if it has the pontiac logo or not. Sometimes I wonder if they didn't run out of certain items on the line and just substitute what they had available. Case in point, Keith K''s car and mine were built in the Van Nyes plant the same day, 34 units apart so they were probably built within an hour of each other. The are optioned almost identically, but his car has the chrome rings around the gauges and mine are black. So, it seems reasonable that two different shifter balls could have been used.
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