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A friend bought a ZL1 clone at Barrett-Jackson but the seller swears it is a real COPO but JM said all they could do is call it a clone because of no docs and the ZL1 engine. I told him he might try to hire someone to try to find prior owners etc. suggestions on who ?

Tracing Vehicle Ownership History

https://www.hagerty.com/media/mainte...rship-history/

Face Book, Lost Muscle Cars... Wes Eisenschenk. This guy seems to pull lost cars out of the clouds. Fair number of success stories on the page.

124379N609580 and he said he got it from a guy in Canada.

Trim tag hurts

All the factory ZL-1 cars vins are known, so is this purported to be an L72 with a ZL-1 transplant ?
I'll post the vin on that page as a lost COPO car and see if anything turns up.

I had to send Wes a message to see if the request meets the guidelines to post...

The seller was swearing it was a L72 COPO that he restored with a ZL1 engine.

Stating the obvious here, but possible Canadian docs available?

Or shipping report with selling dealer ? Might help narrow it down too.
I, also, got a reply from the Lost page with a link to post it. Do you have better pics from the side or, possibly engine ?

How far back does his ownership history tracking go?

Hey guys, this is the owner of the car. I bought the car a few years ago at Barrett Jackson in Scottsdale. The owner at the auction (who is from Canada) swore it was a real COPO car but JM wouldn’t confirm it because it wasn’t the original motor so they ran the car through as a tribute car. Its got one of the ZL1 continuation crate motors in it that GM sold in 2005. The car is painted dusk blue. We obviously know its not a numbers matching car. We just want to know if it was born a copo car. Thanks

Great to have you on board and more info and pics of the car. I went looking at previous BJ auctions, but didn't go that far back. If you can PM the sellers name, that will be a big plus for posting on the fb Lost page. I will try to snag some pics off here to post with it.

There were 10 51-51 ZL1's.
That's a repro tag with a body # that's in the middle of that group of 10.

Not much to go on....

Defiantly get the GM shipper report. If it went to a dealer known for selling copos that would be a big step in the right direction. It would narrow the search for owners original owner history. Certainly whoever restored it would know the original color which would also help. Hard to believe you'd swap a real copo trim tag to make a Zl1 clone but stranger things have happened.

Sounds like there are some good action items:

-Shippers report, $20
-Canadian docs?
-Check hidden vins
-Posted on FB Lost Muscle Cars

So there is zero oral history on the car, no prior owners have popped up? If I'm following correctly, the seller was in Canada, but the auction ad refers to it as an Arizona car?

It isn't posted on the "Lost" page. The page owner had me post it on his "Finding history on muscle cars" page, since it really isn't "lost". We are looking for history, so I guess it makes sense.

N609580 was final assembled on or about March 6, 1969. Would not have an 03D body tag.

All N609xxx VINs were 02D. None of them were built in February.

Maybe it was owned by Jon Voight.. :)

Yeah Wes split that out. I'm waiting to get a pic of my old '64 GTO from my college roomate so I can post it on there.

Does the owner of the car know where to order the selling-dealer info? If not can someone share it?

Charley should be able to help him get that. He's only posted the one time here. I've sent him a PM to get the name of the person he bought it from as a lead too, but nothing back on that.

If the original tag was either damaged or missing and there was a reproduction tag made, that doesn’t clearly state that the car is or is not an original copo or ZL1? We are trying to get the information on the previous owner and we will provide that information if successful. Since the car does fall in to the correct color and dates, how does it get approved or disproved? Either way we are fine, we just seek the facts

I'm guessing someone on here like Kurt could PM you where to look for the hidden partial vins.

Send off for the selling-dealer info, that info might jog a few memories.

Brent on here traced one of his cars back and the original family still had the paper work for the car.

Just heard back from Bear70. He applied for the dealer info a while ago and NCRS doesn't have anything on that vin. Seems it's in one of the "gaps" they have in data. Unfortunate that this car seems to have appeared from thin air.

So my limited knowledge is that I know of a car or 2 like this around Toronto.

1st one was years ago, was to be a original 427 COPO car that was out street racing around in the later 90's.

2nd was a blue ZL1 clone or just a '69 with a ZL1 owned my Mike Gentile of Universal Spinners, the air cleaner guy.

I think Mike sold his car a number of years ago, but I could be wrong.

Man that trim tag just kills the whole situation IMO.

I would run a Canadian UVIP report to see who owned it when it was in Canada. I just checked to see if a report existed for it and it does. Knowing who owned it when it was here might shed some light on whether or not any of the known bad actors up here had there hands on it at some point. The UVIP costs $20 to run.

Never knew of this resource and MAN, it could include important facts about the colour and power of the original car, Thanks Mark !!
This report alone could debunk any claim to a COPO, unfortunately for the owner, if it does. On the other hand, if the vin plate has been swapped as well, it will only indicate the car the plate came from.

I'm PMing a link to the owner so he can follow up on this. Could be the best tip so far.

This package contains:

• the vehicle details (including the year, make, model, colour, body type, cylinders and power)
• a vehicle registration history in Ontario (including all present and previous owners, their city of residence and odometer reading)

I would bet the car was made from a rust free US body as was the standard practice for clones/fakes in the 80's and 90's. Trim tag was made to fit the builder's vision for his COPO clone.

The used vehicle report is a good idea. I did this to find the owner from the early 80's a couple of years ago for my 65 custom Corvette. If the search is sucessful then a simple telephone number look up might work as many people that are older still have land lines, myself included. If that does not work, but you have a name, then hopefully they own land in Ontario, in which case I can likely find them for you. I'm a freelance title searcher and have access to all real estate records accross Ontario. I did this recently to find the original owner of my 69 Chevelle SS, 2 door sedan and have talked to him since. The only hiccup would be if he/she has a really common name, Smith, Jones, etc.. Good luck, Doug.

Owner informed me that he has inspected the stamp on the cowl and it matches vin plate and title. Getting more interesting.
I sent you PM with a name I came up with that is supposed to have been associated with this car to see if it is a "known bad actor" to you.

Charlie, if you would like to PM me the VIN, I could go and run the UVIP at the Ontario MTO office for ya.

John

That is posted on the first page. I provided the owner with a link to apply for the UVIP and he is doing that. Thanks for the generous offer and if we can't get that in the US, he would be grateful if you could get it... :biggthumpup:

I was going to make the same offer. You can do it on-line for $20 and they mail the report to you. You don't need to go into the MTO office.

Sorry if I missed it, but I don't see any clarification if this is a Canadian-sold car or not. My assumption is that it is NOT because a VVS search of the VIN would reveal its origins. There would be no need for the previous owner to "swear" it was a COPO, he would have the GM of Canada document to prove it. So it was imported into Canada in the 80s or 90s, yes?

You guy are a great help.

OK, Mark just informed me that this info is only available to Ontario residents, so if you want to do this, that would be great.
Thanks !!

Also, this is just for Ontario cars. If it was somewhere else in Canada, you would have to see what that province can offer.

NOTHING. Ontario is the only province that offers such a package. And I would not be surprised if it goes bye-bye sometime soon, privacy laws being what they are these days.