Grady Burch's Day 2 COPO Camaro

[m22mike]

Grady and me decided to start a Members ride on his Burnished Brown 1969 COPO Camaro that some of you saw at this years Day 2 display at the MCACN. We held off sharing shots of the car until it debuted at the show. It looks like it was well received and as it has many period correct Day 2 bolt on parts, more on that later.
The car scored well enough to be awarded a "Day 2 Concours Gold award" , and the one that surprised us both was the "Platinum Pick Judges Choice Best Chevrolet" . There were other outstanding restored and judged Chevrolets that could have easily been chosen. And the real surprise to Grady was receiving The "Helen Gibb Memorial Award" presented to a outstanding participant that shows passion and enthusiasm for our hobby. That award speaks for itself when you see all the Day 2 goodies used on this build.

Here is a little story from Grady on how he acquired this 69 COPO several years ago.



This is a brief description of how a 1969 Burnished Brown Copo Camaro found me.


In June of 2013 while attending the Solid lifter Showroom this 1969 Camaro was parked next to me. Looked at it for almost a day while sitting with the car I had brought, the more I looked the more I liked it. It really started to impress me with its originality and zero corrosion, only problem was told it had none of the original drive train. Was still drawn to the car and had a conversation with Mike and he told me I was nuts. I believe his exact words were " It's a Brown Turd" why do you want that. That did not stop me ! I believe the next day, Saturday I started talking to the owner Skip Lecates about it's availability. Yes it was available, now we get serious.

At the time I owned a 1969 Nova SS396/375HP, 31,000 miles, all original drive train, mostly original paint,almost all the original paperwork and an Ammon R Smith car to boot. In short I wanted to trade the Nova for the Brown Copo. Skip was not really interested in taking the Nova in trade. I then continued to talk to him and told him that Chick Renn had expressed an interest in the Nova a year prior. He then tells me Chick is here at the show and proceeded to call him and ask if he was still interested in the Nova. I believe his words were " I will be right over". Chick had ordered the Nova when new from Ammon R Smith and very much wanted the car back. We worked out a deal between the three of us in very little time that left all happy.
Now to make arrangements to make the swap. I asked Brian Henderson if we could meet at his shop and put the car on his lift. I wanted to inspect the under carriage as the car had been raced and wanted to look for damage. We arranged a date to meet that was good for everyone to do the swap.



Mike came along when I went to Brian's to make the trade.......he still thought I was nuts. We get to the shop and get the car up on the lift and start looking around. Found a lot of dents from where a bottle jack had been used in the past but no major problems. Not long after we started looking it over Joe Swezey, Brian's partner said look at this it has a CX trans in it. He then says I bet it is the original trans. We start looking for the serial number with mirrors and after a while find it on the trans flange...........it is the original trans. WOW what a surprise to say the least. Made the trade even better.


When we left that day I do believe all parties left happy, I know I did.

Grady

I will need a little time getting all the shots up on this car from when Grady got the car, through the restoration and assembly, and detailed shots of the day 2 mods. We are still waiting for the sun to come out here in NE Ohio to get some better outside shots of the car, the Burnished Brown is a hard one to shoot, looks almost black on a cloudy day.

Mike

The car as received with Rallys, then Cragers, and then some square tube traction bars







Our first plan on this car was to not paint the car but put it on the rotisserie and detail the floor pans and take car of some bottle jack damage. And that is what we did. Previous owners had applied undercoating to everything that was a bitch to get off, but it really protected the finish.
This PA car @ around 21,000 was 100% corrosion free with a perfect OE interior with a carpet replacement at one time. We elected not to remove the front or rear glass as it was near perfect and wanted to save the factory sealant dam, and the original dash texture is awesome. I also did not remove the headliner and elected to work around it, that was a PITA but it worked.
Now about the original paint on this car, what was remaining was good, problem was it was only about 60%. The front fenders and right door, trunk lid and spoiler, and part of the left quarter panel had been re painted and much of it was flaking off and the color match was to dark. Plus the lower quarters had a textured guard sprayed on them.
It was even talked about re shooting those areas with lacquer, and finally we both agreed that there just was not enough OE paint to save and the restoration began.
A few shots along the way.