"Swedish COPO" up for auction in Florida

[RPOLS3]

Anders-

For those of us that do not know much about the history of the car maybe you could elaborate on it here?

Thanks

Jake

[COPO_Anders]

Jake and Pete, yes I´ll tell you the story about this COPO as I know it. I don´t have much time during this week though so I´ll probably have to do that during the weekend.
Partial VIN is 19N661631 and the body# is 353000. I don´t have any US-history about it, but it COULD have been sold new by Malcolm Konner, Paramus N.J. since body# 001,003,005 and 007 are all documented M.K-cars. But that is no proof of course.
It is listed in the first COPO Connection Source Book as "Documented", but I don´t know why since Ed C. never told me.

[jannes_z-28]

That's sad...

But I can understand it, there isn't any buyers for this kind of car over here. Not that can or will to put up that kind of money for a "rusty" Camaro.

I know some of its history, it has been covered in a few magazines and I wrote an article about it for the Swedish Camaro club magazine.

The rumors says that a guy ordered a Z/28 from one of the importers in the mid 70s. When they had the car in their showroom they called the guy and he refused it since it had a bigblock and wasn't a Z/28. Bummer, but no one knew about the COPOs then.

It got sold and had a bad life the first ten years and its condition became bad. It ended up on a scrapheap with a non-working engine. A guy with a Nova prepped for the strip wanted it and did a trade and got some money for the Nova too. Must have been the best COPO deal in the World!

New owner started to work on the car and discovered some strange things, like the beefier converter and that both the engine and the trans had the cars VIN stamped on them. He started to do some research and found out that this was the true thing, a real 427 COPO Camaro.

The rest is history, Anders bought it from him some time later. It is very rusty around the dashboard and the VIN-plate is rusted away and it has gotten a new VIN-plate applied by General Motors in Sweden in the drivers doorpost.

It will need a body restoration but everything is there with a pretty well documented history from Sweden.

I guess Anders will fill in with more details.

It's sad that we can't keep these kind of cars over here. The market is a fact, there are very few buyers over here that will pay what a car like this is worth.

And that is just what I have told the present owner, if he wants to sell it it has to be in the USA.


Jan

[COPO_Anders]

Here is an e-mail I sent to Kurt Sonen in 2002.



Since then I have learned some things:
The block being cast in January is normal.
When I took the paint off the frontpad I found that "T0528MO" was a restamp. But the partial VIN is not, so it is the original block.
The partial VIN on the trans looks strange from above. Needs to be checked thoroughly.
I didn´t know about all the June-built Camaros being stamped with 06A on the trimtag. I have been told that the body came from Fisher on June 20th and that the car was sent to lot on June 24. So the builddate on the rearend is ok.