Gold Yenko at Mecum sets record

[Xplantdad]

Originally Posted by TarheelRyan

I have a good friend that works at a tech company most of us use on a daily basis. He told me last night that search traffic for “Yenko Camaro” in the past 5 days was greater than the preceding 15 years. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the car or the price paid, it has definitely garnered a lot of attention to the brand.

Amen...and we have a young ambassador carrying the torch forward (so to speak )

[camarojoe]

The gold car in question has the Yenko emblems above the Camaro scripts on the fenders, the 427 emblems bolted to the fenders behind the marker lights, with no emblems on the hood at all, and the unique rear emblem placement with the Corvette 427 numbers placed over the stock bowtie and a Yenko emblem placed far to the right of the factory bowtie. There were no other cars with any of these details present including the Ed Hedrick car, which was not done this way originally nor were any others. I don't really see how it's so hard to believe that this was likely (almost certainly) the only car ever done this way because it was the first one they ever did. No they didn't have to get 17 cars delivered at the same time or on the same day, they likely all sat in the holding lot for a week or so while they decided how to go about getting them prepared, and watched the transporters drop more and more off. When it came time to start the conversions they picked this one out of the row and tried the new 69 stripe and emblem layout on it. They likely made corrections and changes to this layout after that first trial, and pretty much stuck with that template for all the remaining cars.

Absolutely zero reason the emblem layout on this car would have randomly been done completely unlike 200 other ones, unless it was the first one they ever did.

[RPOLS3]

Originally Posted by TarheelRyan

Regardless of what anyone thinks about the car or the price paid, it has definitely garnered a lot of attention to the brand.

Let the haters hate. You stepped up and wrote the check, they didn't. Congratulations.

[HuggerSS]

Well said Joe…

[turbojet427]

Joe, my thoughts exactly when I made my initial post. This car just happened to be the lucky car chosen for the initial 1969 conversions.

[daveg]

Originally Posted by RPOLS3

Let the haters hate. You stepped up and wrote the check, they didn't. Congratulations.

X2 on this

Jealousy is the word I would use but same end result.

Congrats and enjoy.

[turbo69bird]

If at the first one bull shouldn’t the casting dates be seas of others ? If not the cowl tag date.
I don’t really know much about cmarosimrelaky a firebird guy (thought I like the Camaros ) I’m also more of a drag racer and all about dealer / factory race cars specifically.

It could be they knew it would see press when being raced that time, it seems like a lot of big names were on board with the set up maybe they just wanted to be sure the name and the 427 showed in any pictures. Either way doesn’t really matter it is unique among the others- well documented in the magazine and that’s really cool nothing wrong w the price paid.
it’s a unique piece and the price is what someone is willing to spend to own it. The car has also now had a lot of talk about it which adds to mystique and lore of the car which always IMO adds value

I own one of the first 3000. Dodge Durango hellcats. They’ve gone down in value more than some other last and they built more than sad they would there was a lawsuit about it, originally they said 2000 then it went to 3000 then they made them for years
I “think” �� someday that story about the first ones and the lawsuit etc will make them have a higher value then the later cars built only time will tell
We certainly paid more to be on the short list in the beginning.

[JoeC]

I have not found evidence of a “prototype” or what car was first to get the stripes and emblems.
It is an interesting discussion but not the big story.

IMO The big great story is the Yenko 427 Drag Special and the Ron Welsh story and now the big auction story.
Overall, one of the best Yenko car stories I know of.

There are other cars with emblems not installed in the normal locations.

Some 1968 Yenko Camaros had the Yenko crest above the Camaro emblem some had it below .
Some Yenko Chevelles had the 1968 427 emblems installed , some had the 1969 427 emblems .

There was more then one 1969 Yenko that was not done the normal way.

Bobby Goss story and photos about his cousin's OG Yenko Chevelle

When he went to pick up his gold Yenko Chevelle it had not been striped yet.
He wanted black stripes but was told they had no black stripe kits in stock.
He told Yenko Chev to put on the white stripes.

Yenko Chev put on the white stripe kit with no 427 emblems and no Yenko crest emblems and sent him on his way.

(This car was restored with black stripes and 427 emblems and the Yenko crest emblems in the normal way. )

[Steve Shauger]

As I said previously the Yenko 427 Drag Special 11.94 time and coverage made this car significant for me and most others. The first ordered Lemans Blue car, first striped decaled Olympic Gold car. The most famous is the Yenko 427 Drag Special! We can thank Don and all those involved in installing go fast goodies, tuners and driver. Btw every Yenko Supercar is significant!!

[JoeC]

The Yenko 427 Drag Special makes it very unique

The Ron Welsh history adds more to the story.

Ron was not running with the big dogs like Ed Hedrick but Ron did a lot of drag racing for many years.

From what I was told, he at one time was running a 2x4bb tunnel ram and Dana rear.

has a lot of win stickers on it