1969 Yenko Nova

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

To my knowledge, none of the Warren paperwork indicates that a given '69 Yenko Nova is a 396 tuned or a 427 converted car. One of the paperwork clues however that would support a conversion is that there is usually a dollar discount for the original 396 engine - generally $500. Also, the exact process for selling a '69 Yenko Nova is not completely known. We speculate that Don would not go through the expense of a 427 conversion unless there was a legitimate buyer - either locally or another dealer. We also believe that Don bought the SSL78 Novas in batches, and would either sell them through Yenko Chevrolet or Yenko SportsCars - whichever sold them first. This is supported by the trim tag info on several of these cars where the build dates are the same, and body numbers are only a few digits apart.

So, the short answer is that we really don't know how this car was ordered/delivered until Brian Dorsey can obtain some additional information.

[Jeff H]

I guess I was thinking of Baldwin/Motion regarding specific orders to build cars and thought Yenko might do the same thing with the Novas.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

I understand your perspective. Yenko was similar to BM for those cars sold from his own dealership, but unlike BM for cars that were transferred to other dealerships. What we have found is that cars sold from Yenko SportsCars to locals have a very high probability of being unique in some way - for eg; think of BKH's 7k mile yellow '69 yenko camaro with the '68 vinyl top added before being sold new by Regency down the street. We know of another '69 Yenko Nova that apparently had a tri-power installed on the original 396. We know of a Canonsburg sold '67 Yenko Camaro with 4 pages of options installed, and a '68 Yenko Camaro with a proto-type f-glass deck lid. So, Yenko would customize cars that he was prepared to deal with the warranty issues. However, it appears that Yenko traditionally would not customize cars that he was selling into his dealer network - and wisely so. Otherwise, he would have to deal with complaints that were not covered under the standard GM warranty.

The car in question is a Canonsburg sold car, so it is even more important to get additional information on how it was optioned new. The fact that there might not have been stripes or emblems is trivial - and not surprising if true - since we have original owner deuces that had to demand Don to put the Magnum wheels on their car, and even then he just threw the 'Y' decals on the front seat! So, if Don could get out of doing something in order to save a few bucks - he would.