The first X44 Yenko?

[COPO PETE]

I believe Don's personal car was an X11 car and yes it had the wheel well trim and louvers as well as the drip moulding trim. Brian, I believe can confirm this! I'm curious as to how many other Yenko's came this way. My orange COPO is a X11 car and my white COPO is a X44.
Peter

[Chevy454]

Kurt:

I did some checking, and everything I can find in my books and on the internet shows that both the VIN # and the trim tag on Camaros/Novas used either a 3 (L6) or a 4 (V-8). Now, I'm not saying that any of the info I found was correct, just telling you what I found.

So, let me see if I read the above correctly: you are saying that neither Novas or Camaros can be determined to have came originally with an L6 or a V-8 by just looking at the trim tag?

When were the VIN #s stamped on the bodies? Were they stamped AFTER the car was assembled, or on the sheet metal prior to assembly?

[Edited by Chevy454 (06-22-2001 at 11:21 AM).]

[Kurt S]

454,
Yes, you can't tell if it's a V8 or L6 by the trim tag.
Probably the most frequent question the CRG site gets. I think it's under the 'Decoding' section of the site. I'm going to have it made into it's own section to highlight it.

The VIN was stamped on the firewall and cowl after paint, but before assembly. That's why those #'s are often rusty.

[MikeA]

I think you can determine if a Nova is a V8 or a L6 by looking at the trim/cowl tag.
My '72 Nova for example:

ST72 11427 ....

1 = Chevrolet
14 = V8
13 = L6
27 = 2 door sedan
69 = 4 door sedan
Base on information I have this appears to be accurate.

MikeA

[Edited by MikeA (06-22-2001 at 01:53 PM).]

[JoeC]

I wonder if any V8 cars with a L6 ID came with duel exhaust? They would be missing the extra bracket if they were built as L6 bodies. In 69 Norwood used two different build sheets called a "Body broadcast copy" and a "Chassis broadcast copy". There are copies of these for ZL1 #2 in the Hooper book. JohnZ had a few good post about this where he talked about the body coming "through the wall" which I think was what they called it when the body came from the Fisher side to the main assembly side. He also said the main number they used was the "Job sequence number" not the VIN. All the numbers had to tie in together at the end including the job sequence number, the VIN, the key numbers, the dealer order number, and the "ident number". The COPO cars had a bunch more numbers. JohnZ also said there were like 15 copies of the build sheet that would print out in different stations along the line. A guy, who worked on assembly in 69 said he remembers sometimes seeing a pile of build sheets on the floor of a car and they would of course through them in the garbage. here is a JohnZ post.
"Because the cowl tag was installed and used by the Fisher Body plant to serve their specific needs in welding the raw body together (from the dash panel rearward), painting it, and trimming it out. It didn't really matter to Fisher Body whether the final car was a 6 or a V-8, as that didn't affect their part of the body assembly process (except for a few things like an extra exhaust hanger reinforcement welded to the rear side rail for dual exhausts or a hole in the tunnel for a floor shift, and they had their own internal special codes for those things that didn't show up on the cowl tag). All Fisher Body supplied was the painted and trimmed body shell from the cowl rearward - everything else was installed by Chevrolet after the body came through the wall.

[camaromb]

I have been documenting yenko camaros for 10 years or so. When looking at the Yenko inventory pages it is obvious that the orders were typed in before the vin#'s were received for each car. The orders are listed by order number/body number. The first 50 X66 yenko camaros were run backwards in relation to their body number; lower vin #'s had higher body numbers. Who knows why? The 100 cars ordered 11/11/68 (second order)are typically sequenced in order of higher vin/higher body number. These are the 3B cars. The car Brian mentioned (608xxx) has a body number near the last of the 100 "March" cars. Why was it built so early, who knows. Like the Jan. built cars did they start with the highest body number/lowest vin and then change? There is a group of cars listed on the inventory pages after the January cars. These 8 cars are a mix of colors and order numbers. They are hand written in and must of been some of the early cars of the 11/11/68 order. I believe the 2nd car Brian mentions is part of this group (614xxx). There are many unanswered questions about some of the build sequences. I heard from Jim Matteson that there were problems getting rearends for these cars, thus the delay. Unfortunately most of the records are not available to us.

MB

[Kurt S]

MikeA,
The default for all the 1st gen trim tags is a V8 style code.
Your 72 has a V8 style code. You'd need to find a L6 style code to show that the Nova is different. I don't think you'll find one.....

Joe,
Had to get a V8 to option in the dual exhaust. Fisher body didn't indicate that option on the trim tag either, they handled some other way.
Yes, the sequence # or rotation # is how they tracked the cars. The body # was used by Fisher (remember the bodies were dunked to etch them and prep for paint so you couldn't use paper). Chev used the sequence # basically to keep the cars in order, since the VINs jump around. They still do it the same way today. The broadcast sheets were attached to the ends and sides of the car and taken off at different points in the line. Also still used today the same way.

The accepted orders (body #'s) were not scheduled in a very defined way. Scheduling is still an art. So the body #'s will jump around some. Minor detail.