'68 Yenko, Transplant vs. COPO

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Here is a pic of the documentation regarding the L72 engine being tested in a '68 Camaro for Yenko Chevrolet in May of '68. Keep in mind that we should never say 'never' where GM is concerned.

One possible theory is that Yenko purchased this car from GM after their test, as an export vehicle. Yenko then sold it to a participating dealer through his network, with his own warranty just like the other transplant cars. This is not impossible, remember the hemi cuda proto-type story in MCR last year.

Kevin has studied these documents, and can add explanations better than I.
M

[bowtie3168]

Marlin,
Thanks for sharing the info.

Andrew

[Mr70]

Very interesting reading.I enjoy the obscure.

[JoeC]

Wow - interesting document. Special instructions "report name as Excalibur" ? Sounds like someone was being secretive. Not sure why Yenko would need a Federal Emission test on a car sold for Export. My guess would be that the GOV was requesting the L72 Camaro emission test numbers from Yenko and he asked Chevy to help him by performing the test on their equipment. If Chevy was openly selling the L72 Camaro then they would have persued the GOV approvals. The GOV was going after shops that they considered manufactures no matter how small the number of cars produced. In the 60's the GOV shut down some small manufactures like John Fitch by requesting crash test results and emission test results that they could not afford to do.
Marlin-Is there a vin number on the document?

[Yenkofan]

It reads to me like GM is testing Yenko's car for Yenko at Yenko's cost. It doesn't seem to shed any light to me on the transplant or GM produced issue. Yenko wouldn't have had equipment to do the smog tests correct?
Also what does it mean at the bottom when it says "closed" and "no report issued"?
JMHO
Gary

[SuperCars]

Gary, I think you are correct about testing Yenko's car at Yenko's request. But I believe that this could be a 427 Camaro already at the factory that was built by Chevrolet for Yenko. I wouldn't think it would make sense for Yenko paying for shipping a Camaro from the factory, then Yenko go through their transplant process; then pay to ship the car back to the factory, and then pay to ship the car back to Yenko when it was done. I think it was easier to drop in a 427 in at the factory instead of shipping a car 3 times. It is my belief that a Camaro like my 68 Yenko which has the tag from GM that says "special order drag car" is such an example. You can see this tag on my website with the little Chevy bow tie in the rib line of the tag. I don't believe that it would have this tag like this if it was just another RPO L78. I'm not suggesting though that my 68 is a COPO 9560 like in 69 though. I believe this it is possible my car could be a pilot 427 motor but hidden in the COPO 9737 sports car conversion. Jim Mattison in his interview in MCR touches on this a bit. Jim was in charge of COPO orders at GM and makes the comment on this very same subject. He says the guys in engineering where always doing something like that; and I don't think Mattison has any agenda for making statements like this unless they were true.

Lots of strange things have happened when it comes to GM's engineering research and development department. Another example I can give, is that for years it was believed that no M22's where ever put in a 65 Vette. This is because it was never listed as an RPO from GM. I own such a M22 Vette that is used in Alan Colvin's book "Chevrolet by the Numbers" and is the documented example of a M22 Vette which was instrumental in proving that. You can see my M22 Vette in the appendix of Colvin's book.

Then is the controversy of the 66 427 L72/M22 Vette to which some claims are made of these as being a cast iron head version of the L88. The reason that some suggest this is that for example in 1967 there were 20 L88 corvettes and 20 M22's produced. On this very subject there is an old article by Martyn Schorr as well. Interestingly Martyn as a young writer was at Motion Performance in 1966 when a 66 L72/M22 Tanker Vette was brought in for modification. Martyn writes that on the window sticker the motor was listed as L72-B. When the motor was taken apart for blueprinting it was discovered to have a gear drive timing gear with reverse rotation distributor. It also had a different valve train and the piston compression was not identified. Strange story, right? (I have to get Denis over to my house to post this as I have a scanner but yet to learn how to do it.) Anyway, this summer in Bloomington, Al Grenning whom is an NCRS judge and Corvette historian will do a presentation on 66 427/M22 Corvettes. He asked for my 66 427/M22 Tanker which raced at Daytona to be there as a part of his demonstration. I am sending it and it will be there as part of the special collection. He has uncovered GM factory documents documents on these 1966 427 Vettes which when having the M22 they were not the conventional L72 427, but a cast iron head version of the L88. I've yet to see these documents myself. Anyway, I guess all the more for the saying "never say never".


[Edited by SuperCars (04-20-2001 at 11:03 AM).]