[William]

The ‘COPO body number theory’ developed years ago based on data from Gibb and Yenko. The body numbers for many of their COPOs [and some other dealers] are often in groupings of consecutive numbers. The thinking was a potential COPO had to fit into one of the known groups. If it did not, it was ruled out as a COPO. At one time it was thought dealers had to order COPOs in some minimum quantity. Several dealers ordered one ZL1 and are not known to have ordered other COPOs. There are many known COPOs with random body numbers. As more COPO data became available it was obvious that the theory did not generally apply.

Consecutive body numbers are a byproduct of a dealer submitting a group of orders. If a dealer ordered several Camaros at a time and they and were quickly confirmed they typically have consecutive body numbers regardless of equipment. JM’s 1969 Camaro book has copies of documents for two 1969 Z/28s: N632127 [BDY 307027] and N632342 [BDY 307028]. There is a third car in the string that was not a Z/28: N627532 [BDY 307026]. The same dealership ordered 98 1969 Camaros; of those 56 are in sequence with at least one other car. Groups are typically 2-3 cars however there are groups of 7 & 8 cars. Berger Chevrolet ordered perhaps 50 9561 and 1 9560 COPOs in 4-5 separate groups. Their earliest COPOs have body numbers grouped in the N206xxx range and typically VINs of N607xxx-N609xxx. However their ZL1 N608193 is not in that range. It may or may not have been ordered with the others. If one of the cars in a group was not immediately confirmed it will not be in body number sequence with the others. One Gibb ZL1 is not in sequence with the other 49; all were ordered at the same time. Other Berger 9561 COPOs are not in sequence with any of their known COPOs.

There are other dealers with multiple COPOs also not in sequence: Dale, Emmert and Glockner to name a few.

I took a look through the CRG db and quickly found several examples of COPOs with body numbers very close or in sequence with standard production cars:

NOR 2xx748 is an L65 Powerglide
NOR 2xx749 is a COPO automatic

NOR 2xx130 is a Z11
NOR 2xx136 is a ZL1

NOR 2xx050 is a COPO
NOR 2xx052 is a Camaro SS convertible