68 Harrell Nova

[sixtiesmuscle]

HUH?, And, I don't remember Jim Mattison claiming that ALL '68 Yenkos were COPOs. Did I miss that statement, or, didn't he say that "some" 427s were installed at the factory? Wasn't corporate still against racing, so, they wouldn't have wanted to build the fifty necessary. It wasn't until the COPO loophole was uncovered and exploited that Gibb was able to get the 50 Novas built. Seems like then the floodgates opened for ZL1s, and 427 Camaros & Chevelles.

[JoeC]

Chevy was not supposed to be involved in racing but there was a lot of "research" being done on 500+ hp motors - both iron and aluminum. L88 rods were not designed for the trailer towing package.
Jim M. did say he remembers the 68 Yenkos were 427s with MV code but other opinions exist. I believe the 68 Yenko was done using the COPO system 9737 because of the 140 speedometer and other hi po parts. I don't know if the 68 Yenkos were built with a special MV L78 or a MV L72 or something else. What I am saying is if 50 were built with a 427 or if 50 were built with a special 396, I would think that Chevy would have asked NHRA to make it legal for racing. I am sure the racers in Chevy engineering would have loved to build 50 L88 1968 Camaros since the 68 Hemi Dart/Baracuda and 68 428CJ Mustang were on the drag strips. Here is a quote from Jim's post "Cole and Estes also wanted to be able to track these vehicles for ownership, as well as warrantee expense. They had the Chevrolet Product Planning Department issue a special engine code for the "427" engine that went into the 1968 Yenko Camaro COPO 9737. That code was "MV". Tonawanda records show that a total of 79 engines were built in 1968 with the "MV" engine code. I don't know if all of these engines went into vehicles (some were held for warrantee), but I do know that they were (L72) 427's."

https://www.yenko.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000379_2.html

[sixtiesmuscle]

O.K. Joe, your point is well taken. Why do you think Chevy didn't make 50 L88 Camaros AND ask to have them approved by NHRA? Why was it left to creative dealers to push the racing packages?
What causes you to doubt the statement made by Jim M.? Isn't he the only person who was actually there at the time who has come forward with information on this subject?

[JoeC]

I can write a post a mile long on Chevy Racing. There were some good books written on this fascinating subject. I can only guess why Chevy didn't make a run of 50 special 1968 Camaros. Fred Gibb and Harrell got the 1968 COPO L78 Nova with TH400 built. The reason may be as simple as "because they asked for it". Chevy R&D was very busy in 1968 with the Hall CanAm cars and the Penske/Donahue Z/28 Camaros. They also helped Smokey Yunick build a 427 Chevelle for Daytona in 68. (Smokey ran 1966 Chevelles at Daytona in 66,67,&68). According to Smokey, Chevy spent a ton of money on the 67 that Curtis Turner put on the pole at Daytona 67. They had a real fast Chevelle in 68 but it was not allowed to run. (long story) Grumpy, Strickler and others were doing quite well with their L78 and Z/28 Camaros so maybe nobody asked for a special 68 Camaro. If Chevy built an L88 Camaro it may have had to run in the same class as the Hemi. Motion ran one in M/P. The 68 Yenko has been discussed here before so if you do a search on it you should find the info.

[Ray Morrison]

Couldn't have said it better, Joe. Since Chevrolet dropped their factory backing for drag racing after the 1963 season, GM more or less built cars that would sell through their dealer network to the general public. Demand for the high performance cars & parts escalated as drag racing became popular in the 60's. As demand grew and more interest came for faster equipment by the general public, who spent a lot of money on bigger and better stuff as it became available, was
a better deal for them to build what the authorized dealers could sell as far as drag racing is concerned. As Chevrolet was still doing well in the stick shift classes, Fred Gibb who was very involved in drag racing a 67 Z-28 Camaro to the 68 AHRA World Stock Points Championship, saw some areas that Chevrolet wasn't competitive, this being the automatic classes and the Super Stock class. In answer to a previous post as to why there were not 68 L-88 Camaros built, I think you are probably right on because a single dealer or group of dealers did not ask for them? Not many dealers were as willing to stick their necks out and invest in a group of special built cars built under the COPO process. At least 2 dealers were willing to do this with 50 or more in one order, however, Don Yenko & Fred Gibb. Fred Gibb, who was good friends of Ed Cole even as one Gibb family member stated as pheasnat hunting together, was successful in getting Chevrolet to build 50 ZL-1's for his dealership in LaHarpe, IL, which qualified them for competition against the Hemi's & Ford's. Why mess around with an L-88 when Chevrolet would build a basic Camaro with the lighter aluminum motors? Weight was a big factor in competition! Fred received the first 2 of these on New Years Eve 1968.

[Chevy454]

Ray:

You bring up an interesting point about "why" Fred ordered the '68 COPO Novas. I was recently thumbing through an old Super Stock and Drag Illustrated (June '68), and they were talking about the refactoring that NHRA was doing to curb the amount of Chevrolets. A lot was in part of the under-rating of several of the Chevrolet engines. For instance: the Z/28 was refactored to 315 horsepower, while the L-71 was factored to 48o horsepower, and so on. But, in the article they stated the "Chevies haven't been strong in the automatic classes for years". So, obviously someone saw a niche for a new drivetrain combo, and convinced Chevrolet it would work.

I'm sure Ray could add a lot of info on this aspect of it, as he was there when it happened. Anyway, just something I found "interesting".