Gold Yenko at Mecum sets record

[turbojet427]

Joe Barr and I are on the same page. May not be the earliest VIN or Body #, but because of the uniqueness of emblem locations and bolt on items.

[turbojet427]

The cars were most likely sitting in a holding lot and they grabbed one to do start. Highly unlikely they were worried about VIN sequence as a determining factor.

[JoeC]

Hard to say what happened but the rear bow tie 427 emblem is a bit odd.

The 1968 Yenko used a Yenko 427 emblem and Yenko crest so seems logical to do the same on the 1969s as shown in many original photos

What is interesting is the DY Ed Hedrick Yenko had the rear bow tie 427 emblem same as the OG drag special.

Ed's car was built with the standard 1969 emblems as shown in early photos of Ed's car.
Ed changed it after the car was hit in the back

Same thing may have happened to the OG drag special
The OG drag special was a demo on the road a few months and thousands of miles before the drag test.

Again , hard to say what happened especially with a demo car.

[JoeC]

A LB Yenko Camaro is said to be the earliest vin

here is a page from American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne

They posted the info from Mecum where it was was said to be the "development mule and test car "

The OG drag special is about 17th 1969 Yenko Camaro by vin number?

Would Yenko Chev have recieved 17 COPO 427 Camaros on the same day?

[turbojet427]

Who knows for sure. Who knows how many were delivered over how many days. How long did they sit before they started to dealer prep and convert? I know my vinyl guy isnt always on schedule. It makes logical sense that Cliffs gold car was the first one simply because of the uniqueness of the bolt on items.

I couldn't imagine these new dealer installed L72 copo cars getting delivered and a few didn't get driven as test mules, especially being a brand new idea AND how simple it is to "keep the miles off." Haha.

[mprice]

I doubt it will ever be settled which car was the first converted from a copo to a Yenko but in my book this car warrants the top spot just because of it being the test car for the Super Stock article. All the gold cars were ordered in that first batch produced January 2nd week. Also along with that order was the other groups of 10 produced in the other colors as was one of my orange cars. Not that it matters but I personally never placed any higher value on any car being the first or the last.

[JoeC]

In the 1987 MCR interview with Don Yenko, they have some nice original photos.

The caption says the early cars had different Yenko crest emblem locations.

The caption also says some cars had embossed head rests.

It is a great interview but here are inaccuracies in that article

[Pro Stock John]

Definitely a special one given the magazine coverage and I'm sure some extra tuning and whatnot.

Tenney's GTO for example, test car, it was amazing to see it in person at MCACN.

[camarojoe]

The gold car in question has the Yenko emblems above the Camaro scripts on the fenders, the 427 emblems bolted to the fenders behind the marker lights, with no emblems on the hood at all, and the unique rear emblem placement with the Corvette 427 numbers placed over the stock bowtie and a Yenko emblem placed far to the right of the factory bowtie. There were no other cars with any of these details present including the Ed Hedrick car, which was not done this way originally nor were any others. I don't really see how it's so hard to believe that this was likely (almost certainly) the only car ever done this way because it was the first one they ever did. No they didn't have to get 17 cars delivered at the same time or on the same day, they likely all sat in the holding lot for a week or so while they decided how to go about getting them prepared, and watched the transporters drop more and more off. When it came time to start the conversions they picked this one out of the row and tried the new 69 stripe and emblem layout on it. They likely made corrections and changes to this layout after that first trial, and pretty much stuck with that template for all the remaining cars.

Absolutely zero reason the emblem layout on this car would have randomly been done completely unlike 200 other ones, unless it was the first one they ever did.

[HuggerSS]

Well said Joe…