The Term "COPO"

[JoeC]

Jim was there so he can answer better then me but I believe the term "coh-poh" was started by the magazines in the mid 1980s. Before that most of the magazines said factory 427s did not exist. I never liked the term "coh-poh". I like to call them 427 COPOs. Some dealers ran ads in 1969 calling them "factory built 427 Chevelles and Camaros". A guy I know who worked at a dragstrip in 1969 calls them "425 horse Camaros". In Jim's post above he called them "factory hot rod" which is a good name because the hi performance COPOs were literally built to race. In my opinion Chevy would have never built them if it were not for the NHRA rules. They tried to keep them low profile with no 427 emblems or even SS emblems except for the 1968 Nova TH400. The 1970 LT1 Novas didn't even have any SS body parts. The 1970 Camaro COPO spoilers were pushed through so they can be used on the 70 Camaro Trans Am race cars.

[hvychev]

I got to thinking after reading this post. You really have to thank god for racing. What if the different race organizations such as NASCAR, NHRA, AHRA, etc. had not made minimum production rules on certian cars to be raced in a particular class? We would never have had cars like the ones that we love so much and focus on in this board. Or you would never have cars like the Superbird/Daytona, or the Ford Taledega, etc. Just an interesting thought. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[SS427]

I think our hobby would be non existent if not for the racing organizations. These are the reasons why the manufactures did what they did with these cars and without those organizations, we would likely have nothing. Just look what they have done for the trucks in recent years.