Well you learn something new everyday. All American built C 172,s after 1967 had Lycomings engines but it seems the Reims built aircraft kept the Continentals until the early 1970,s. I assume that was because they wanted to keep the European built Rolls Royce Continentals over having to buy US built Lycomings.
I will second your comments about the engine being very smooth if properly maintained.
As for its status as a "Classic" .........well we will have to agree to disagree on that
