The first X44 Yenko?

[Chevy454]

There is a low mileage L-6 '69 Nova here around our town that has a 6 cylinder VIN # but a V-8 trim tag. I want to say it was just sold by the original owner, but I will have to ask dad to make for sure.

[Edited by Chevy454 (06-21-2001 at 05:27 PM).]

[COPO PETE]

When you guys get this figured out, you can help me with which came first, the chicken or the egg. In my business this would be great to have documentation on
Peter

[COPO]

There is a guy on the camaros.net board w/user name JohnZ. He has extensive knowledge of this process as he was a plant manager for Chev. He explained the sequence earlier on the camaro board. Can't recall it exactly.

Also on the copo.com board when Ed C was unsure of the original selling dealership, he would list it as Yenko Chev. The was the case on my Colonial sold Yenko Camaro.

[Edited by COPO (06-22-2001 at 08:01 AM).]

[Unreal]

A bit off track from Brian's X44 question, But KurtS mentioned an X11 Yenko. Would an X11 Yenko have wheel well trim, quarter louver trim, drip rail moulding? i've seem pictures of "Yenkos" with this, but didn't know if any were actually produced that way.

[Kurt S]

The order process is documented, there is a sheet that was provided to the dealers describing how the orders were processed.

The order was placed and when it was accepted, the # which we call the body # was assigned.
When that car was able to fit into the build mix, it was scheduled. Body tag was stamped and attached to the firewall and body was built up.
When the body passed thru the wall out of Fisher, it was put into a queue for sequencing. This was so certain operations were overloaded, basically spacing the cars out, eg don't want to many convertibles in a row or AC cars, etc. In this queue, the VIN was assigned.
Proof the VIN was assigned here is the broadcast sheets all have the VIN on them. And they needed the VIN so they could sequence and stamp the engine and trans.

Marlin,
No way the cars would be scheduled if the parts weren't there or else due in a day or two and would be there when needed. They didn't schedule the body #'s in order. This topic helps show that. And once the car was started being built, it went the whole way thru the line. It would be chaos otherwise.

Denis,
Body #'s were assigned by body style and interior in LA only in 67 and by body style in LA in 68. Norwood assigned 67-8 body #'s irrespective of the body style.

454,
All 68-9 Camaro got a 124-7 trim tag, even L6 cars. The engine didn't affect Fisher Body so it wasn't coded. Should be the same with Nova's.

Charlie,
JohnZ worked for Chev back in 69, but he was the plant manager at a competitor (big hint is look at his email ID).

Unreal,
I said it was an X11 COPO, not an X11 Yenko.

Kurt

[COPO PETE]

I believe Don's personal car was an X11 car and yes it had the wheel well trim and louvers as well as the drip moulding trim. Brian, I believe can confirm this! I'm curious as to how many other Yenko's came this way. My orange COPO is a X11 car and my white COPO is a X44.
Peter

[Chevy454]

Kurt:

I did some checking, and everything I can find in my books and on the internet shows that both the VIN # and the trim tag on Camaros/Novas used either a 3 (L6) or a 4 (V-8). Now, I'm not saying that any of the info I found was correct, just telling you what I found.

So, let me see if I read the above correctly: you are saying that neither Novas or Camaros can be determined to have came originally with an L6 or a V-8 by just looking at the trim tag?

When were the VIN #s stamped on the bodies? Were they stamped AFTER the car was assembled, or on the sheet metal prior to assembly?

[Edited by Chevy454 (06-22-2001 at 11:21 AM).]

[MikeA]

I think you can determine if a Nova is a V8 or a L6 by looking at the trim/cowl tag.
My '72 Nova for example:

ST72 11427 ....

1 = Chevrolet
14 = V8
13 = L6
27 = 2 door sedan
69 = 4 door sedan
Base on information I have this appears to be accurate.

MikeA

[Edited by MikeA (06-22-2001 at 01:53 PM).]

[JoeC]

I wonder if any V8 cars with a L6 ID came with duel exhaust? They would be missing the extra bracket if they were built as L6 bodies. In 69 Norwood used two different build sheets called a "Body broadcast copy" and a "Chassis broadcast copy". There are copies of these for ZL1 #2 in the Hooper book. JohnZ had a few good post about this where he talked about the body coming "through the wall" which I think was what they called it when the body came from the Fisher side to the main assembly side. He also said the main number they used was the "Job sequence number" not the VIN. All the numbers had to tie in together at the end including the job sequence number, the VIN, the key numbers, the dealer order number, and the "ident number". The COPO cars had a bunch more numbers. JohnZ also said there were like 15 copies of the build sheet that would print out in different stations along the line. A guy, who worked on assembly in 69 said he remembers sometimes seeing a pile of build sheets on the floor of a car and they would of course through them in the garbage. here is a JohnZ post.
"Because the cowl tag was installed and used by the Fisher Body plant to serve their specific needs in welding the raw body together (from the dash panel rearward), painting it, and trimming it out. It didn't really matter to Fisher Body whether the final car was a 6 or a V-8, as that didn't affect their part of the body assembly process (except for a few things like an extra exhaust hanger reinforcement welded to the rear side rail for dual exhausts or a hole in the tunnel for a floor shift, and they had their own internal special codes for those things that didn't show up on the cowl tag). All Fisher Body supplied was the painted and trimmed body shell from the cowl rearward - everything else was installed by Chevrolet after the body came through the wall.

[camaromb]

I have been documenting yenko camaros for 10 years or so. When looking at the Yenko inventory pages it is obvious that the orders were typed in before the vin#'s were received for each car. The orders are listed by order number/body number. The first 50 X66 yenko camaros were run backwards in relation to their body number; lower vin #'s had higher body numbers. Who knows why? The 100 cars ordered 11/11/68 (second order)are typically sequenced in order of higher vin/higher body number. These are the 3B cars. The car Brian mentioned (608xxx) has a body number near the last of the 100 "March" cars. Why was it built so early, who knows. Like the Jan. built cars did they start with the highest body number/lowest vin and then change? There is a group of cars listed on the inventory pages after the January cars. These 8 cars are a mix of colors and order numbers. They are hand written in and must of been some of the early cars of the 11/11/68 order. I believe the 2nd car Brian mentions is part of this group (614xxx). There are many unanswered questions about some of the build sequences. I heard from Jim Matteson that there were problems getting rearends for these cars, thus the delay. Unfortunately most of the records are not available to us.

MB