Copo Camaros

[Troy Henderson]

Originally Posted by Alan Nyhus

Steve Koppien's blue Camaro that he won Stock Eliminator at Brainerd with last season is a honest-to-Gawd COPO 9561.

Something way cool about racing your 6 figure collector car! He's going to put it back to street duty sometime though he said.

[junior barns]

Can you tell by the ser# if a car is a COPO?? Camaro?

If so what #'s do you look for???

[Chuck Norton]

The vin#s of the COPO 9560 cars (69 total cars) that were equipped with aluminum 427 blocks have been widely circulated. Their identities and the locations of most of the survivors is no big secret to the insiders who follow and collect them.

The COPO 9561 cars (no one seems to know the exact number) that were equipped with iron 427 blocks were never documented by anyone other than the Yenko organization and a few collectors who got on the bandwagon early in the game. The Yenko cars are listed. The other 1000 (or so) 9561 cars are not officially cataloged although there are people who have tracked many of them unofficially. An expert can sometimes trace a given car back but if it's been modified and cut up too extensively it will take a keen eye and broad background to be able to state definitively that a car is a 9561 COPO. In the end, there will always be questions about any car that is not accompanied by original paperwork and/or an unimpeachable chain of ownership going back to day-one.

[larry dowty]

chuck one of the copo 9560 car went to allen green chev. in BURIEN washington, the service manger dick totino raced it in the early days of pro stock, it has sold many times in the nw the alum. motor expired at the hands of john mangini one night at the old puyallup drag strip, to my knowledge it is a bracket in seattle?

[Michael Kilduff]

Junior,

I will add to what Chuck has written. It isn't possible to soley use the VIN to determine a real COPO, unless the engine is in or with the car and even then there are caveats.
I think starting in 1968 Chevrolet stamped the vin either partially or in whole on the block and the transmission on all cars produced in compliance with federal law. So, if you find a 69 camaro with a 427 engine and the vins matched up then it would be reasonable to assume the car is a COPO.

The caveat is that people can restamp blocks and create a fake. And the restampers are getting very accurate with what was factory produced. It is very difficult to ascertain what is real and what is restamped. And, of course, when a block is decked usually the original stamping is removed.

I'm not a first generation camaro expert, but I think these are some things that may be helpful in identifying a 427 COPO camaro.

With the VIN on the dash you ascertain if the car was a V-8 coupe which is essential to a COPO 427. If memory serves correct the third digit in the VIN would be a 4 and the fourth and fifth digits would be 3 and 7. The *4* identifies a 8 cylinder engine and the *37* identifies the body as a coupe. To the best of my knowledge there were no convertible 427 COPO Camaros in 1969. There are also 'hidden' partial VINS on 1969 camaros on the firewall behind the heater box and on the cowl just under the cowl panel.

During production in 1969 the Camaros built at the Norwood plant were given X codes found in the trim tag such as x-11, x-22, x-33, x-44, x-55, x-66, and x-77. cars built in Van Nuys had no X=codes. The early built Norwood cars had no X-codes. The X-codes appeared a few months into 1969 production in Norwood.

Most people think all the COPO 427 Camaros were X-44 and that is not true. There were many X-codes used for COPOs, i think the first COPO 427s were X-66. X-codes may be used to qualify that a car isn't a COPO 427 however. All X-55 1969 camaros were SS-350 for example. But not all SS-350 cars were X-55.

It should be known people are faking trim tags and swapping trim tags around as well to create clones. There is even a company called 'Trim Tags' that make such tags, and unscrupulous Ebay sellers such as 'bucket full of tags' will sell tags that came off of other cars.

A Camaro expert could help someone identify a car as possibly having been an original COPO 427. None of the COPO 427 cars came with AC for example, and all came with the ZL-2 cowl induction hood, all came with big block heater cores. These are easy things to identify, but others are much more difficult such as deciphering specific date codes and assembly dates. In identifying legit breeds of '69 Camaros such as z-28s, SS cars, and probably the 427 cars things like fuel line size, exhaust hanger brackets, sway bar diameter, multileaf rear springs, number of hood hinge coils, etc can help identify if a car is 'real' or not. But all of these things can be bought and applied to a plain jane 6 cylinder car just as well.

About the only way to actually ascertain if a car is a true COPO is to have the documentation supporting it and a chain of ownership if possible. protect-o=plates and reciepts, service records, pics for 1970 etc...

The car that was at B-J this weekend that sold for 137K that was presented as a COPO 427 has a cloud of uncertainy surrounding it that is getting darker. It was presented with GM Canada docs at auction but it is possible that someone could build a COPO around these documents with a donor 69 camaro.

Last year at B-J a certain ZL-1 COPO 69 camaro-number 27 of the original 69 I think- was sold and it is well known that the car is not originally a ZL-1, it is a recreation.

Lots of deception in the collector car market . Restamps and switching VINs runs rampant.

[junior barns]

Thanks Michael.

[Michael Kilduff]

Originally Posted by larry dowty

chuck one of the copo 9560 car went to allen green chev. in BURIEN washington, the service manger dick totino raced it in the early days of pro stock, it has sold many times in the nw the alum. motor expired at the hands of john mangini one night at the old puyallup drag strip, to my knowledge it is a bracket in seattle?

Larry, the car you are probably talking about is ZL-1 number 27 that I mentioned in my post.
Last year that car rolled across the block at B-J auction and created quite a ruckus. Well, the VIN to car number 27 of the ZL-1 heritage rolled across the block, but probably nothing else.

One of the previous owners of the car-Chuck Sharin- weighed in on what became of that car. He raced the real ZL-1 #27 in Wash state back in the 1970's and went in detail at www.camaros.net in a thread about the car and the history of it. Also included is a 9 minute clip of the auction.

Lots of reading but educational, and very entertaining-

http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=149505

[larry dowty]

thanks michael that is correct chuck raced it for a while, then i think comp. racer dave barcelon has owned it and re- sold it a couple of times he has some really good pics in his shop , i miss the old days and allen green chev with all there hp cars.

[Dana Fitzpatrick]

Michael, that is some great info on what to look for on COPO Camaros. A couple of more things; COPOS had front disc brakes, curved upper neck radiators, and heavy duty BE-code 12 bolt rearends. Early Yenkos I believe were X66 and X22 codes. A few were X11 (mine and I believe most of the Bergers) but X44 were the most common.
Some, like Berger ordered them in bunches so there are some consecutive body #'s that can also help in identifying them.

[magnumv8]

Yenko started the 427 Camaro issue buy ordering 396 Camaros and a crate 427 and doing the conversion themselves...to streamline the issue they convinced the powers that be at Chevy to provide him with a way to order the cars with the 427 already installed, this started the COPO 9561 and 9560 Camaros....Yenko wanted the codes and the cars for themselves but the codes managed to be picked up by other performance dealerships ending their exclusive use of the codes....any dealer anywhere if they had the right code could order a COPO Camaro....this also is what makes total production tough because a 427 Yenko Camaro could be just that and not be a COPO Camaro....and Yenko wasn't the only place that did this prior to the COPO availability...