Authenticating A COPO

[William]

I'm not on any fence. Jerry and I have been friends for some time and he is free to do as he pleases. We agree to disagree on some of the stuff he does. I know I talked him out of one "COPO" certification years ago. The car had nothing more than a BE axle dated several weeks AFTER the car was built and evidence of a ZL2 hood. 25 years ago I added ZL2, N33, N34 and a few other options to a '69 Z/28. I watched that "all original car" sell at R-S last January. I laughed as people checked to see if it had a flat-bottom air cleaner. Of course it did.

In my 15 years at CPX some of our customers built clones. One of them, a black '69 SS-RS L78 convert, started life as an early-production Le Mans blue SS350. The current owner was quite disappointed to hear the real story. Every part in that car is date-code correct.

What I can say is this: given a reasonable budget and some time a knowledgeable shop could build whatever you want [exc ZL1] and no one will be able to prove it isn't real.

Therein lies the peril in "certifying" undocumentable cars.