[SuperCars]

This is getting interesting. Thanks for your posts Jim M. It is great to hear from someone like you who was involved with these processes. I was especially keen to hear about your personal contact with Don Yenko and the part about Don Yenko, Ed Cole, and Pete Estes agreeing together for production of the 427 Camaro in 1968. It sounds as if this took place in the middle of the 68 Production year. I always wondered how Yenko could afford to do the 427 transplant conversions and warantee them on his own.

I have heard of this MV 396 block also, and is evidence for 68's having been transplants. But, we also see here as Jim states; that later in 1968 Chevrolet committed to 68 427 Camaro production under COPO 9737. I believe at least one 427 Camaro was built, such as my 68 Yenko with Chevy tag: "special order drag car".

I am repeating again from GM documents under COPO 9737/Yenko/, April 68 is the first appearance of the RPO V78 "Less Certificate of Compliance/Export/". This is what would cover Chevrolet (Cole and Estes) from the Emissions regulations and thus put the matter on Yenko's shoulders to resolve. Now that Yenko was successful in getting Chevrolet to commit to build 427 Camaros, his next challenge was to keep Federal Emissions guys from contacting him, if he were selling non-compliance cars. Technically at this point a factory production 68 427 Camaro could only be sold as a race car or exported. This most likely resulted in Yenko's request for the Chevrolet Engineering Test Order for the L72 Camaro smog test (with the code name "Excaliber) which as dated May 20, 1968, with 6-21-68 as completion date. I believe this Smog Test request is the fall-out after a 427 Camaro with V78 non-compliance was built and Yenko realizing he had to deal with Federal Emissions as well.

I have a last side note here. Just for the heck of it, as I didn't think the answer would be yes; two days ago I asked Vince the question: were any 68 Yenkos exported? He said no they weren't, and actually most of them went to one state. He told me the state, and was a complete surprise to me; what state that was.