Gold Yenko at Mecum sets record

[JoeC]

In 1967, Don Yenko was well aware of the potential of the 427 Camaro for drag racing.

Don teamed up with Dick Harrell and the AHRA to make a minimum of 50 427 Camaros to make the cars legal for AHRA Super Stock drag racing.
Not legal in NHRA but legal in AHRA.

Some of the 1967 Yenko 427 Super Camaros were built with a drag racing package including headers, scatter shield, traction bars , hood pins, tach and gauges, and high temp plug wires.
This is well documented on the original Yenko work orders.

Yenko and Harrell sponsored a 4 car drag racing team for 1967 only.

In 1969 the COPO 427 Camaro was legal for NHRA Super Stock and Yenko sponsored two Daytona Yellow Yenko 427 Camaros.

Don and Dick Williams knew they had to make a good showing in that Super Stock magazine drag test.
They took the Gold demo car to York set up with headers, scatter shield, 4:56 gears and Atlas mag wheels.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Ed Hedrick Bill Jenkins , Dave Strickler, and Jere Stahl were at York for the testing that day.
Jere installed a set of his spring clamps and a set of header collector extensions.
Ed bolted on a set of his slicks.

This PA. crew was "loaded for bear" and they pulled off an amazing 11.94 ET at 115mph

"Mission Accomplished"

[69L78]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

Tarheel posted a couple days ago he bought the green one and was reuniting it with its original engine, very cool. Was the engine known about for a while?

Long story short, I have know about this engine for over 25 years, it was advertised for sale as a COPO engine at the time. The owner of the engine was from Phillipsburg, PA & bought a 70 Corvette & this engine was in it. When I went to look at it, several people had contacted him wanting to buy it only if he could provide the VIN. In his attempt to clean the rough area, he used a wire wheel & he told me he ruined it & could not read the whole VIN. I passed on the COPO engine & the CE L88 short block he also had for sale. Fast forward to early 2024, I was fortunate enough to buy a real 69 X44 D80 10-10 COPO minus its original engine. After all these years, I tracked down the owner of the COPO engine & I was able to buy it. After getting it home, I cleaned the rough area not expecting to find a VIN, but I was able to see enough of the VIN to verify that it was listed in the registry & was a RG Yenko sold out of PA. After some help from my friend Bryan Shook from Vintage Car Law, I was able to find that the car was registered & in a trust & was part of the Cliff Ernst collection. With some help from Jerry M, I was able to talk with J.R. Ernst & the family already had the cars consigned to Mecum & they were not interested in the engine.

[JoeC]

Warren D. has original paperwork on the Gold Drag Special , the 427 Nova, and the Fathom Green 69 Yenko Camaro.

Warren offered it to Cliff but Warren still has it

It would be nice if the original paperwork can be kept with the cars.

[lycan]

Originally Posted by JoeC

In 1967, Don Yenko was well aware of the potential of the 427 Camaro for drag racing.

Don teamed up with Dick Harrell and the AHRA to make a minimum of 50 427 Camaros to make the cars legal for AHRA Super Stock drag racing.
Not legal in NHRA but legal in AHRA.

Some of the 1967 Yenko 427 Super Camaros were built with a drag racing package including headers, scatter shield, traction bars , hood pins, tach and gauges, and high temp plug wires.
This is well documented on the original Yenko work orders.

Yenko and Harrell sponsored a 4 car drag racing team for 1967 only.

In 1969 the COPO 427 Camaro was legal for NHRA Super Stock and Yenko sponsored two Daytona Yellow Yenko 427 Camaros.

Don and Dick Williams knew they had to make a good showing in that Super Stock magazine drag test.
They took the Gold demo car to York set up with headers, scatter shield, 4:56 gears and Atlas mag wheels.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Ed Hedrick Bill Jenkins , Dave Strickler, and Jere Stahl were at York for the testing that day.
Jere installed a set of his spring clamps and a set of header collector extensions.
Ed bolted on a set of his slicks.

This PA. crew was "loaded for bear" and they pulled off an amazing 11.94 ET at 115mph

"Mission Accomplished"

SS&DI article claims the car had 4.10 gears ... ?
If Yenko really did install 4.56 gears in Canonsburg, it would even be more compelling evidence of the uncommon "conversion" that Yenko performed for this "drag car prototype"

work with me guys, i'm tryin to make sense of it all

[bergy]

Great info in your post #71 Joe. Do we know if the race equipment installed for the York Dragway run was removed prior to the sale to the first owner? Would be very insightful to see if any of those goodies were on the shop order.

[Copo_Cartel]

Originally Posted by TarheelRyan

I bought the engine from Jeff Boone a couple of years ago. Both Jeff and I contacted the family about the engine, but they were not interested. Another interesting note about the car, Jerry MacNeish noted the car's original BE rear axle is now the earliest BE rear axle in his database. I was going to post a complete copy of Jerry's report and hundreds of other historical photos that Cliff had accumulated over the years to the Yenko Facebook page, but decided I didn't want to deal with more garbage comments and deleted the post prior to Admin approval.

The 11-19 BE rear axle was used in several 01B Yenkos and some ZL-1’s. It is considered the earliest known date for these cars.

[Copo_Cartel]

Heres a photo of mine

[JoeC]

Originally Posted by lycan

SS&DI article claims the car had 4.10 gears ... ?
If Yenko really did install 4.56 gears in Canonsburg, it would even be more compelling evidence of the uncommon "conversion" that Yenko performed for this "drag car prototype"

work with me guys, i'm tryin to make sense of it all

SS&DI article claims the car had 4.10 gears but the sales ad says 4:56 gears

Ron said it had 4:56 gears and he changed it to 4:88

I don't know when the modifications were done , they may have been done just for the magazine test

[JoeC]

Parker on his 'Backyard Barn Finds' youtube channel does some nice videos.

When he was at the Mecum auction, he calls up Ed Hedrick to ask about the drag test.

Ed comes on the phone at about the 31 minute mark .
This is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPamPl3NIp8

[Steve Shauger]

Originally Posted by JoeC

SS&DI article claims the car had 4.10 gears but the sales ad says 4:56 gears

Ron said it had 4:56 gears and he changed it to 4:88

I don't know when the modifications were done , they may have been done just for the magazine test

Dick William has confirmed there was both "engine modification" along with 456 gears.