LOS COPO 9561

[William]

'Pilot' cars were built on the line using mostly production parts. N500003 was an engineering car, built up out of a '68 body and some hand-fabricated parts including the instrument cluster and trunk floor. Intake manifold had a stamped casting number. Since it was never in production, there was no body tag. All bets are off; anything could have been done.

There are two photos of it in the October '68 Motor Trend. In those days, magazine lead time was about 90 days so the photos were probably taken late June '68. In both, the car has a ducted hood. Since it virtually had to have been built with panels off of production tooling, entirely possible the hood tooling was done at the same time. Hard to say for certain but in the photos it appears to have 15 x 6 wheels.

I had the opportunity to examine N500003 at D & R a few years ago. Very interesting car. Engine is stamped V0615DZ; VIN hand-stamped by the oil filter. Probably done later on after it was assigned a VIN and very surprisingly sold. Those were the days!