Earliest known..??.

[William]

For some perspective on Chevrolet in the ‘60s, everyone should read these books:

"Chevrolet = Racing?" by Paul Van Valkenburgh
"Best Damn Garage in Town" by Smokey Yunick
"The Unfair Advantage" by Mark Donohue
"On a Clear Day You Can See GM" by John De Lorean

A constant theme through the Donohue & Yunick books is how cheap and difficult Chevy was to deal with.

I doubt Jenkins was given much of anything. Maybe some parts. In his paperwork, there was an invoice for the March 11, 1968 purchase of a used '68 Nova from Ed Rinke Chevrolet in Center Line MI. Shows a purchase price of $2,580.82. The '69 Camaro was purchased from Roth Chevrolet in PA.

Chevy had extensive involvement with sports car racing, NASCAR, SCCA Trans-Am racing. They did do some instrumented testing on Jenkins car, didn't get much from it. According to Paul Van Valkenburgh, they had virtually no interest in drag racing.