66/67 Chevelle COPO?

[markinnaples]

Back when Auto Trader magazines were the big thing, so 80's / early 90's, I saw quite a few '67 Chevelles with 427's and with SS427 emblems. Many were from North and South Carolina, so I'm guessing that there were a few dealers who transplanted the 427's into some '67 Chevelles. I always wondered why there weren't factory 427 '67 Chevelles with so many factory 427 Corvettes around, it just seems like the perfect fit. I'd love to find one now.

[jeffschevelle]

Short answer is there are no known provable (or even barely credible) examples of any 66 or 67 Chevelle being factory built with a 427, and no known records of any such car being built (or of any suffix for a 66 or 67 427 of any horsepower fitted with a Chevelle oil pan and exhaust manifolds).

If it HAD happened, then I would expect the car to have no rear panel SS emblem, and no grille SS emblem, because there were no "SS427" emblems in existence at that time that would fit on a Chevelle for the factory to install. (Similar to the 69 COPO cars' absence of SS427 emblems.) As far as I am aware of, there has never been a single one to show up that way, and certainly not an unrestored example.

Any urban legend of a guy who worked at a plant being able to get a car built with a 427 "on the down-low" would have to explain how he also got whomever supplied the SS396 emblems to make ONE set of SS427 emblems for that car. Or alternatively how he got the Fisher Body plant to produce and install a 66 rear tail panel that had holes for the Malibu/SS trim strips and the "CHEVELLE" emblem but no holes for the SS396 emblem, or a 67 rear tail panel that had holes for the Malibu/SS trim strips but no other holes at all.

Every 66 Chevelle SS with an alleged "factory" 427 that I ever saw before Trim Parts starting making SS427 emblems for 66's, had a rear panel emblem made by cutting the 396 off the two S's, and installing the 427 part of a 67 Impala SS427 fender flag beneath it. (There were at least three of those in the early 70's roaming around the town in NC where I grew up.) But it would have been pretty darn hard for the factory to install an emblem during the 1966 model year that did not even exist yet! Plus the issue of getting Fisher Body to put the holes in the right place.

Lastly, the one 67 Baldwin Motion 427 car that was built started life as an L78. If a 427 COPO package had been available, you'd think they would have just ordered that instead. And even that dealer-built car had the emblem problem - early pics show grill emblem removed, and SS396 emblem still in place on the rear panel. Then at some point later someone hand-made a rear SS427 emblem for it. It is a big chunk of an emblem, quite thick, with huge bosses on the back for screw-in studs. They had to drill giant holes in the tail panel for the bosses to stick through, and then use spreader type brackets over the studs to hold it tight to the car. I have had that emblem in my hands and it feels like it weighs a couple pounds! The guy restoring the car was going to toss it and install a new Trim Parts emblem. I told him he would be crazy not to have that weird one-off emblem replated and put it back on the car. But I digress ...

I would be very happy to be proven wrong some day and have a verifiable real 66 or 67 factory 427 Chevelle surface. But until then, I will stick to: No such animal !!

[Keith Seymore]

The above is basically what I had written and deleted (I was looking for some clarification on the car Wes mentioned).

At any rate, here is what I had:

Originally Posted by 69hurstSC

I know someone who worked Bowling Green in the '60s and claimed to have been able to get a 427 put into a new Chevelle. The car still exists but that gentleman passed. I believe his son has the car though still. I should probably reach out.

Originally Posted by 67since67

No documented '66 or '67 factory 427 Chevelles. Dealer swaps, yes, many.
Member here Jeff H has researched this extensively.

I've given this a lot of thought.

I'm a "never say never" kind of guy (reference my own stories), but here's why I think these substitutions would be very difficult or virtually impossible.

1 - First of all, the components would have to be in the plant. Discretely sub an engine that exists for a comparable size/build? Small block to small block? Sure. Small block to big block? Probably not. Put a "Corvette" engine in a pickup truck? No - because there wouldn't be any Corvette engines sitting around at Flint Assembly or Janesville or Fremont, and it would be very conspicuous to ship one there.

2- Support staff. In order to sneak added components or upgraded content you have to be able to get it past the inspection and repair stations. The number of co-conspirators would be far ranging and ever increasing. In order to sneak added content (or upgraded content) you'd have to bribe or be friends with both the inspector and the repair people at the end of the supervisor's area, the repair and inspection people at the end of the final line, and the inspectors at the shipping area, at a minimum. That's a lot of beer, and you had better be well liked in the plant. If you are regarded as a d*ck it's not going to happen.

Dad tells about finding a large quantity of stainless steel in the die room. Somebody decided to make a beautiful anchor for their boat out of it. By the time they were done the had to make about 5 of them: one for the boss, one for the boss's boss, one for plant security (to get it off property), and a couple for friends, in addition to the original one. That means about half the boats on Higgins Lake had one of these anchors.

3 - Documentation. This is a biggie in this context. If a substitution was made ad hoc (on the floor) all of the build documentation would still show the original order content. Even if it happened there would be no paper trail 10, 20, 30 years (or 10, 20, 30 minutes) after the fact.

4 - Coordination.

I've followed hundreds (maybe thousands) of vehicles down the line as they were being built (several of which were my own). When we do future product pilot builds on the regular production assembly line we have a whole launch team from engineering, material, plant personnel, etc, tracking those parts and coordinating the various new part and option content. It is very difficult, seemingly nearly impossible, to accomplish even with an entire team working full time at their actual job. That makes it even more unlikely if you have a single individual, working alone on the sly, to try to change "their build" as it is going down the line. An individual component, like a trailer hitch, could get snuck through. A more complicated change which is highly integrated crossing multiple functions, like adding air conditioning - probably not.

Finally, an example: My friend Dimitrie Toth has worked 50 years as an hourly employee at the Pontiac plant (he's still working there). Back in the day he decided he would build up a factory blueprinted and hot rodded 421 in the experimental engine build room with the idea he was going to sneak it into his personal car as it was getting built.

When the day came he and his accomplice wheeled it over to the motor subassembly line and introduced it into the assembly process, clapping their hands together with giddy anticipation.

Imagine his horror about two hours later when he saw it going into the plain jane station wagon six vehicles in front of his. He had mis-counted where to place it back on the motor line.



(I always picture some little old lady going to get groceries and thinking "Man! This old wagon really runs!!)

My point here being that - even if he had successfully installed his hot rodded 421 into his car from the factory - all of the build documentation would still show a 389 cu in engine installed.

K

[L78_Nova]

Purchased this on Ebay many years back for too much $$.
It is HEAVY.






Gary

[jeffschevelle]

That looks like the emblem on the Motion car!! I thought I recalled the bosses on the back being bigger, but maybe not.

Based on those #'s on the back, I would say that was an aftermarket part that some trinket vendor or some speed parts company concocted, and they had 3 versions of it they were peddling - 350, 396 and 427. And 350 being there makes it a 1967 creation at the earliest.

Very cool part!!