68 Harrell Nova

[Ray Morrison]

Couldn't have said it better, Joe. Since Chevrolet dropped their factory backing for drag racing after the 1963 season, GM more or less built cars that would sell through their dealer network to the general public. Demand for the high performance cars & parts escalated as drag racing became popular in the 60's. As demand grew and more interest came for faster equipment by the general public, who spent a lot of money on bigger and better stuff as it became available, was
a better deal for them to build what the authorized dealers could sell as far as drag racing is concerned. As Chevrolet was still doing well in the stick shift classes, Fred Gibb who was very involved in drag racing a 67 Z-28 Camaro to the 68 AHRA World Stock Points Championship, saw some areas that Chevrolet wasn't competitive, this being the automatic classes and the Super Stock class. In answer to a previous post as to why there were not 68 L-88 Camaros built, I think you are probably right on because a single dealer or group of dealers did not ask for them? Not many dealers were as willing to stick their necks out and invest in a group of special built cars built under the COPO process. At least 2 dealers were willing to do this with 50 or more in one order, however, Don Yenko & Fred Gibb. Fred Gibb, who was good friends of Ed Cole even as one Gibb family member stated as pheasnat hunting together, was successful in getting Chevrolet to build 50 ZL-1's for his dealership in LaHarpe, IL, which qualified them for competition against the Hemi's & Ford's. Why mess around with an L-88 when Chevrolet would build a basic Camaro with the lighter aluminum motors? Weight was a big factor in competition! Fred received the first 2 of these on New Years Eve 1968.

[Chevy454]

Ray:

You bring up an interesting point about "why" Fred ordered the '68 COPO Novas. I was recently thumbing through an old Super Stock and Drag Illustrated (June '68), and they were talking about the refactoring that NHRA was doing to curb the amount of Chevrolets. A lot was in part of the under-rating of several of the Chevrolet engines. For instance: the Z/28 was refactored to 315 horsepower, while the L-71 was factored to 48o horsepower, and so on. But, in the article they stated the "Chevies haven't been strong in the automatic classes for years". So, obviously someone saw a niche for a new drivetrain combo, and convinced Chevrolet it would work.

I'm sure Ray could add a lot of info on this aspect of it, as he was there when it happened. Anyway, just something I found "interesting".