Introducing........RAT’S NEST

[R68GTO]

Owner #6 changed the radiator back in the late 70's. Said he pulled it out of a 68 Camaro big block. I'm not yet sure what the radiator is out of....my research says it's a service replacement????
Cowl hood is original and date stamped to line up with the car build date. Normal sway bar, 120 mph speedo. Pic below shows ZL2 hole occupied by the original wiring harness and grommet.

[bergy]

R68GTO has really educated himself with regard to the COPO attributes. Great job & cool car!!!

[R68GTO]

Thanks for the kind words Bergy!
Once I had the name/number of the next owner, this ultimately started a chain of prior owner to prior owner contact. I also took out Craigslist ads and Facebook posts looking for info on the car. Through some of those ads I was able to connect to several members on this site who all were very helpful in educating me on this COPO thing.
Through all of that, here’s where I’m at. I’ve phone interviewed (and took a ton of notes) the consecutive chain of seven prior owners or a close relative of an owner (2 are deceased). I believe I am only missing the original owner, more on that later. I have photos of the car from 4 of the 8 prior owners, two others say they have some, they just haven’t sent them yet. The 2nd owner (deceased) bought the car in 1970/71 from the original owner and fairly quickly turned it into a race car. That’s a cool story on its own!

[markinnaples]

Wow, great story so far and looking forward to hearing and seeing more. Good stuff!

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Way to go Red !
Can imagine the excitement of learning/studying all the fine points and then have most of them fall right in place on the car in text-book condition as you went through it methodically.


Lots of Awesome all going in your favor !


Is that you standing in the doorway at previous owner garage ?

Guessing nobody from Owner #3 upwards knew it was a Faktry COPO ?

Have been reading a lot of the discovery threads for the past week in this COPO section. Your car is definitely speaking for itself more clearly than "most" of the others i have read about.

One of the best condition "previous owner unaware" COPO Camaro's that i can recall in those readings. I'm back to 2012 in the archives, currently.

[R68GTO]

The guy in front of the garage is the guy I bought it from. The guy I bought it from wondered aloud to me if it was a COPO several times over the years, the guy before him had no clue (at least he never mentioned it to me), everyone before that (we're now back to the late '70's) essentially said the same thing to me when they first understood what I was calling about "I wondered where that car went, did you know that was a factory 427 car?!" The best I can tell (this kinda amazes me), this car has never had anything but a 427 in it, ever.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Pure Fuggn Groooovy Man

Sure wasn't expecting to see any of my old Pontiac people to be on here posting up about a fresh find on a COPO when i recently signed up.

I'd rank this similar to finding a previously unknown 68 RamDeuce Firebird .


In one of these upcoming episodes tell us what kind of hardware is bolted together on that engine. Does it have rectangle port heads etc ...


Hey Boss , you bought any COPO or Yenko cars you need to come clean about ?
I know you'll buy a Chevrolet when the price is right.

[The Boss]

Sorry Todd, no COPO's, couple 1LE's and a few old Pontiacs. Nothing special.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

same old , same old over this way too.

i did try to influence a relative about the yella 69 copo project that is listed for sale on here, in Charlotte NC .
Think he just wants to grow old in peace and quiet.
to Hell with that

[R68GTO]

Let’s get to that 2nd owner story so the title of this thread makes sense. Owner #5 gave me the name of the guy who used to race the car regularly (turned out to be the 2nd owner). He didn’t have a phone number but said the guy still ran a local business. I called that business looking for the guy. The kid on the other end said he never heard of that guy. I told him why I was calling, he said, “oh, I know who you're probably looking for!” He connected me with that guy (I’m keeping names out because I haven’t asked their permission yet). He told me it wasn’t his car, but was his best friend’s / drag racing buddy’s car and knew it well. I got the same “did you know that’s a factory 427 4 speed car?” statement. His buddy had passed away about 8 years ago. The guy I was speaking with actually painted the car shortly after his buddy bought it! In our conversation, I asked if he knew if the car had Camaro fender emblems when his buddy had it? He pretty quickly said yes. I asked how in the world he knew that so quick. He said cuz I have a picture of the car hanging above my desk! He asked me if I could call him back around 5:30? He said that the 2nd owner’s son would be at his business then and I could then talk to both of them! Both guys are still drag racing today. Of course, I called them back and we talked about an hour about the car. The son told me he clearly remembered when his Dad brought it home. Blue, dog dish hubcaps, no spoilers. He drove it on the street for a short time, then turned it into his drag car. The photo below is the one hanging above the guys desk. My first look at RAT’S NEST! The son still has his Dad’s racing helmet (painted to match the car) hanging in his garage!