ThE ** RAREST** C.O.P.O. Car .

[William]

Tonawanda did not produce engines on spec. They were built based on demand from vehicle assembly plants. Tonawanda built 1,373 Camaro/Chevelle L72 engines. For '700 total vehicles' to be correct means about 700 L72 engines were produced for no reason. Really think they did that?

"That would mean less then 500 L72 Camaros produced by July 31."

By July 17th, Tonawanda had produced 920 Camaro L72 engines. The various data bases out there have over 400 COPO Camaro VINs built as of the July shutdown at Norwood. There are plenty of unknown COPO Camaros; the famous Mac's Chev photo dated June 1969 shows 8 COPO Camaros on their lot. Only one is known. Courtesy Chev in Sebring OH had some; none known to exist.

"The Fran Preve article "The Numbers Game" said that engine production was 2 to 5 percent over car production . He was talking about regular production engines and cars and he must not have known the COPO 427 car production numbers at the time of the article (1987)."

What difference would it would have made if he did know? Fran clearly states where he got the data:

“The numbers are taken directly from Chevrolet’s Summary of Engines Shipped.”

Why do you continually second-guess his data, obtained directly from Tonawanda production records by an employee, 18 years after production?

“…and the Fran Preve numbers come close but there are questions on the accuracy…”

Who knows better than an insider with complete access to production data?

Here is a COPO Camaro build record for a car shipped to Canada. Lists L78, 9561, no Z27. Why are there 1,066 more Camaro SS engines [L48, L34, L35, L78] listed in the T & B totals than total Z27 Camaro SS production?

[JoeC]

Originally Posted by William

Tonawanda did not produce engines on spec. They were built based on demand from vehicle assembly plants. Tonawanda built 1,373 Camaro/Chevelle L72 engines. For '700 total vehicles' to be correct means about 700 L72 engines were produced for no reason. Really think they did that?

I don’t know how good the Chevy inventory control system was in 1969 but Yes I do think the engine production number can go much higher than the car production on SHP engines. They have a history of doing that.

The SHP 427 Corvette engine production went much higher than car production numbers (from Corvette web sites so not sure if they are 100% but was same on different sites )

1967: 277 L88 engines , 20 L88 Corvettes built
1968: 615 L88 engines , 80 L88 Corvettes built
1969: 213 L88 engines , 116 L88 Corvettes built
1969 94 ZL1 engines , about 3 ZL1 Corvettes built.

They even built SHP engines for cars that were never built
14 Engines built for the 1971 LS6 Chevelle , no production cars built

Some engines have been found with COPO suffix codes and no vin number stamped on the block.

Tonawanda built a lot of engines and stamped many different suffix codes

12 engine suffix codes just for 1969 396 Camaro/Chevelle
18 engine suffix codes just for 1969 427 Passenger

suffix codes just for a Heavy Duty Clutch or a Police package

[JoeC]

Originally Posted by William

Why do you continually second-guess his data, obtained directly from Tonawanda production records by an employee, 18 years after production?

Fran Preve did a great job getting the Tonawanda engine numbers and we are lucky to have them but some of his assumptions were not accurate.

In the 1987 article "The Numbers Game" He states the numbers do not reflect actual COPO cars produced but he said that the engines are 2 to 5 percent over cars.
They were not 2 to 5 percent over cars, they were 2 to 22 percent over cars

ZL1 Camaro 88 engines to 69 cars = 22%
L72 Chevelle 358 engines to 323 cars (using RPOs) = 10%
L72 Camaro 1015 engines to 997 cars (using RPOs) = 2%


In the 1990s he made the calculation subtracting the RPO L78 and Z27 Z25 numbers and assumed that all remaining cars are COPO 427.
This calculation result shows 997 COPO L72 Camaros and 323 COPO L72 Chevelles.

This assumption may not be accurate because it is not known how Police, Export, other COPO, F&SO , or foreign assembly plant units can affect the numbers.

There was some info found on non-SS 396 Chevelles.
This showed that the assumption all remaining cars are COPO 427 may not be accurate

Attatced a pic of a 1969 Police Chevelle brochure showing a 396 325 HP option.