The Term "COPO"

[JoeC]

The term COPO was not coined by the car magazines. It is shown in many Chevy documents. The way I understand it, COPO was a process used to order options that could not be ordered using the normal RPO process of ordering options. For example - you could have ordered a 1969 Corvette with RPO ZL1 but it was not available on a 1969 Camaro. You could have ordered an Impala with RPO L72 but RPO L72 was not available in a Chevelle or Camaro. The COPO process was used to build hi po cars that Chevy didn't really want to build. Some COPO options were parts such as the 1971 style spoilers used on a few 1970 Camaros, but more often they were combinations assembled to build a complete vehicle that was then given its own COPO number. For example, you can order a 69 Camaro with RPO Z28 and it optioned the car with the 302 engine, front disk brakes, 12 bolt rear, and other hi po parts that were mandatory with RPO Z28. It also prevented you from ordering certain options such as AC and AT. Now here is where the tricky part is that got the Chevy gear heads all excited. NHRA required a minimum of 50 factory built units to qualify in Super Stock class drag racing. Fred Gibb wanted to run a Camaro in Super Stock. He ordered 50 Camaros and he wanted to run the ZL1 engine but it was not available as RPO ZL1 so they put in an order for COPO 9560 to have them built. Like RPO Z28, it was a combination with mandatory options such as alu 427 and special BE rear, etc and also made other option unavailable such as AC. Fred Gibb had used the COPO trick the year before to get 50 special L78 Novas with TH400 trans that was not normally available with the RPO L78 option.