[Keith Tedford]

Joe C. is right about the build sheets. The engine codes were there in boxes 5 and 27 and the COPO code was at the bottom of the sheet. Without knowi8ng what these codes meant, you would just assume that the car had an L78 motor as listed with the rest of the options.
In our area at least the 427 Camaros and Chevelles were no secret. We found out about the COPO options in early Calendar year '69. Several dealers in the Toronto, Oshawa area sold COPO Chevelles and Camaros as did several others. Not too many could afford the cost of the car and the insurance so they didn't exactly jump off the lots. Even the L78 was not shown in the normal option lists but the hard core people knew they were available. Same with the COPO cars. GM had a lot of government agencies hounding them in those days so low key worked best in these situations. GM sure didn't seem to be hiding anything from us. GM sent him all the COPO information for ordering the cars right away.
The 4 speed cars came to the assembly plants with the clutch assembly, pilot bearing, bell housing and exhaust manifolds. The automatics came with the flex plate. Each engine had its own code. The big cars had different exhaust manifolds attached which would not fit a Chevelle chassis. Different engine code again. If everything was identical, as in the '68 Chevy II and Camaro 4 speed cars, then you got the same MQ engine in both. The 50 COPO automatic Chevy II cars in '68 were coded differently again. Then again just when everything starts to make sense GM changes the rules.