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

[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