OneStopRestoration's Special Orange 69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Coupe

[cheveslakr]

Not that old so can't help 1st hand, but the L78 wasn't even listed in the power team combos and the 300 deluxe in either hdtp or sedan was very rare but not unheard of. Very interested also if anyone here remembers what was known in the typical dealer of '69.

[Too Many Projects]

Originally Posted by jer

Not that old so can't help 1st hand, but the L78 wasn't even listed in the power team combos and the 300 deluxe in either hdtp or sedan was very rare but not unheard of. Very interested also if anyone here remembers what was known in the typical dealer of '69.

1969 is the ONLY year the SS package was offered on a 300 model car, both sedan and hardtop, and yes, any of the 396 engine choices were available.

[70LS6454]

Looking forwards to following alone. Love the Orange cars.

[OneStopRestoration]

So if anyone has a sharp eye you should have seen the very upper part of the cowl on both sides where the front fenders mount had received damage. My best guess is the car was hit at grille level or higher, and the fenders and hood pushed back wrinkling the top of the cowl on each side where the fenders mount. If you study the pictures you can see the rusty areas where the cowl popped the paint from the wrinkling of the metal.

[OneStopRestoration]

I was able to source a donor cowl from another 2dr 69. I was happy to find it but not happy that once I removed the dash on the donor that it was pretty rotted underneath. This meant 10-12hrs of fixing the donor cowl before I could even tear into my car

[OneStopRestoration]

Note the rusted areas from the paint being crinkled so bad

[OneStopRestoration]

So i cut the tops of each side wrapper as I wanted to preserve date codes on the metal, top piece of the cowl and the Dash as its really the top piece of metal that goes over the cowl. These show the sand blasted cowl, donor top cowl, and original dash.

[Bill Pritchard]

To try and answer questions posed by GMC Typhoon and jer earlier in this thread, the SS396 option on the two 300 Deluxe models (coupe and sedan) was not as unknown to many Chevrolet dealers as were the COPO cars. As Mitch pointed out, it was only available in the 1969 model year, intended to be in direct competition with the very popular Plymouth Road Runner and Dodge Super Bee. Problem was that while the Road Runner and Super Bee were a new concept in the 1968 model year, the Chevrolet Super Sport models had been around for a number of years as top-of-the-line offerings, with high grade interior trim and extra exterior ornamentation. Chevrolet customers were accustomed to this higher level of content on Super Sports, so when the lesser equipped 300 Deluxe Super Sports came out, they were not well received by the Chevrolet crowd.

As far as the L78 and L89 option availability, they were clearly listed on the back side of the order form as being available, and perhaps some dealerships didn't look at the back side of the order form, thinking all available options were on the front side. Any dealer that stocked or sold high performance cars certainly knew of those options, as they were both around for the 1968 model year also.