[old5.0]

Well, I don't know about the farmers not buying hot rods. In Marshall County Kansas, I know of more than a dozen Hemi cars that exist currently or did exist at one time. I know of 3 Judges that came out of Bergren Chevrolet/Pontiac/Cadillac in Marysville, the county seat. The Ford dealer, Boss Motors, sold numerous Boss Mustangs, including 5 or 6 Boss 351s. I've seen pics of two LS6 Chevelles and a 69 L78 Camaro that came out of Whiteway Chevrolet in Frankfort, KS, a town of about 1,000 people just down the road from Marysville. I know of at least half a dozen 428 Mach 1s, 69 and 70 models, from restored cars to junk shells that have been in the area their whole lives. I've also heard realiable stories about 3 different Shelbys and a 67 or 8 Nickey Camaro that existed around there years ago.

I don't think the problem was nobody was buying them, I just don't think many of them survived. I don't know what the salvage yard situation in Ohio is like, but eastern Kansas and Southeast Nebraska were overrun with little mom n' pop yards at one time. I can think of 15 or 20 within 40 miles of Marysville just off the top of my head, and I'm sure there were more that I've never heard of.

Many of those went out of business within the last 20 years or so and crushed out. I'm sure that didn't help the local musclecar population any. Again, I don't know about Ohio, but that stuff just didn't sit around in fields for decades back here. Add in the fact that despite the amount of hot rod iron sold around there, few people in that particular area care much about old cars, and there's damn little of that stuff left. Just pictures and stories.

As far as COPOs, a friend's dad worked for Bergren as a mechanic for 30 years, and he's mentioned a couple of Camaros with 427s running around town. Whether they were COPOs, and where they may have come from new, I couldn't say. I can say that Mac's in Crete and Van-T in Topeka were both a fairly short drive from Marysville.