Is there any way besides the build sheet for me to prove that a chevelle would have been a copo car? Some back ground information... My father purchased the car brand new, I have the sales agreement from the dealership, and the payment book from the bank. He hit a pole in the driverside rear quater panel, reapinted the car white, then a few years later did the bad deed of selling the motor, transmission, and rear end. The other sad part of the story comes in the fact of it having less the 10,000 original miles, and it being not very well taken care of so it looks like has hundreds of thousands miles on it. I removed the headliner and found what looks like a paper where a leak test was preformed, and also looked under/inside the dash. Even removed the gas tank to look on top of it. I found 1 i guess it would be build sheet in the front seat that stated it had black interior, a delux seat cushion, and a few other options. The car curently has plastic/fiberglass inner fender wells, front disc brakes, an SS hood, SS gagues, and a nice line of rust that i am told is where the "ss" stripe was. The car was originaly huger orange, and never properly titled, they always screwed up the vin number even as recently as 4 years ago.

Thank you for any advice,
Robert Obeginski

Welcome to TC, Robert. There's a website called yenko.net that's specifically devoted to factory supercars like COPOs. I posted a reference there to your post here, so hopefully some of the knowledgeable people who hang out there will chime in.

Here's something that may help, considering you say the original colour was Monaco (Hugger) Orange. That colour was basically only available as an SS-396 or COPO. On the trim tag if the PNT code shows "72 72" or "72 followed by an alpha digit" representing a vinyl top - then it is probably an SS car. If Opposite the PNT code it shows "-- --" then it could very well be a COPO. Let us know what that trim plate says. Hope this helps.

COPO Chevelles would have the single 3/8" fuel line like an L78 car. It would have the Malibu trim piece above the glove box and the body would not have been drilled for SS emblems. The grill would have the blue bow tie emblem. There was also a certain time frame in which the COPO Chevelles were built. The build sheet would show the MP or MQ engine code, KQ rearend, and the COPO 9566AA or 9566BA codes. We have our car apart and there is no build sheet unless it is buried inside the seats. Luckily it is a Canadian car and I bought it new so I have all that paperwork along with the GM of Canada information.

What dealer did your father buy if from? Ed

Is this car located in Michigan??? Sent you a e-mail.
Peter

Well i just got home on wensady morning and decided to go out in the cold to see what else i could dig up...

It has a blue grill emblem, faded, but its blue.

Malibu trim piece above the glove box.

the dealership was:
Jim Chumbley Chevrolet Inc.
1180 E. Michigan Ave.
Ypsilanti, Michigan

selling price is 3925.00 11.08% APR made teh three yr. loan 109.16 after the down payment and trade in. A far cry from the 420.00 the my Trans Am costs me.

The exact purchase date is July 29, 1969

Vin # 136379B394091

I have been trying to do some research on it and was told that the piece of paper i found in the fron seat is decoded as the fallowing: (not sure if it is true or not)

Here's what I can tell from the card:
13637 - 1969 Chevelle Malibu Sport (hardtop) Coupe
B55 - I haven't seen this option before but I believe that it
indicated a
deluxe front seat cushion ( A Malibu would get a deluxe seat)
A52 - Bench Seat
755 - Black vinyl interior
61621 - Body sequence number, should also appear on the first
line of the
body serial plate
177628 - Probably the last 6 characters of the VIN (Vehicle
identification
number)
630 - Assembly line sequence number

I have a registration from 1971
the plate was LSD 561
the vin on teh registration shows 13637(0)B394091 the zero in the paraentheses are what is wrong from the car.

I am guessing that by trim tag you mean the tag on teh cowl, i may be wrong so please correct me if need be. I'll do my best to recreate it here it was kind of hard to read, and its only 10 degress outside right now so i was in a hurry...

ST69 13637 BAL 2328 (either 5 or 6) 3 BDY
TR 755 __________________________PNT
6DB 1357 B H192637
B

Lastly the car is in michigan, saginaw to be exact.

I may be able to help you out with some of the COPO clues on your dad's car. I'm in the NW Detroit area...feel free to shoot me an email. anausied@hotmail.com
Tony

The Vin is in about the middle of the COPO production.

Looked at a couple of '69 SS over the weekend at the East Coast Indoor Nationals this weekend, and seemed to remember the window stickers on both of those cars as being right around $4250.00. Based on this car having the $3900 selling price, would that be in keeping with the SS pricing? All would depend on the price of the 427...

In front of the 'PNT', is there no two-digit code, or is there a series of two dashes? You mentioned that the car was Hugger Orange. Like Don said, if it was an SS car it would have code 72 there since this was a color available on those models. If an SS-only color was ordered on a non-SS car, I'm not sure exactly how that would have been handled. Possibly with the dashes or just blank as Don suggested.

Another thing to look at. Is the hood original? Is there evidence on it under the white paint that it was orange from the factory? That hood would only have come on an SS or COPO car, and some of the details of your car suggest that it was not an SS.

the original hood is not on the car, its in the other garage on the other car. and yes it is a faded orange color, under the white. It also has the double cowl, that is as SS hood.

On the tag it is just blank, there are not dashs for the pnt code. I put the underscores there to line up the letters.

What trans did this car have from the factory? If it was auto it should have the TH400 kick down switch if the car was a big block originally

What is the redline on the tach?

COPO 9566AA cost us $634 CDN. Close to the combined cost of the SS396 package with the L78 added. Our car was $4436.00 CDN List.

Some helpful suggestions here, but as I understand it the car is known to be a genuine COPO since it was purchased new by the current owner. What he is looking for are things to substantiate its heritage that can be offered up as proof in the future. Therefore, anything that theoretically can be removed from another car and replaced onto this car will not be much proof (e.g., tach, kickdown switch).

The rear panel would have been pierced for the upper and lower trim but not for the SS396 emblem in the middle. Pretty well everything else could be replaced. Malibu quarters would have holes for the Malibu emblem. A 300 Deluxe would not have any holes pierced in the real panel. I suppose, given enough time, someone could file in all the pierced holes but a magnifying glass would show that they weren't pierced. That is a hard one to fake. The sheer lines would be evident on the real thing.

The car had a manuel transmisson, the redline on the tach is at 6000, with like a yellow warning area at around 5700.

The redline is right for a 396 or the 427.

So assuming that most of the facts that my father told me about as far as it being a copo are true. My next question would be at what point is it not just any other restoration, seeing as how i no longer have the main ingrediants. (motor, tranny, and rear end.) It seems to me that the main reason the car is what it is, is no longer there. With out the main ingrediants, its seems that anyone could pass it off as "another clone." Is there somewhere that a magical motor land contains a block, or am i SOL, and just restore to a way that i want, rather then be a perfectionist on the details?

Buying all the correct drivetrain parts will be expensive with things like 499 distributors going for upwards of a thousand dollars. You would be surprised at how many of the restored COPOs don't have all their original drivetrain pieces. Dropped valves did in a lot of the engines and poor driving did in a lot of transmissions. Wheel hop tore apart a lot of rearends. Put the car together with whatever you can find and enjoy it. Your dad did. So should you.

There was a COPO 427 engine that was just offered (and I believe sold) the other day on yenko.net for $18K or so.

Since its unfortunate that all the expensive stuff is gone. I agree, there is no reason you cant build it the way you want it. After all its been in your family since new wasnt it? Who cares if anyone thinks your family heirloom is a fake, you know its not and thats all thats important. If it were me, i would drop in a nice crate 502 or a good core 454 to have rebuilt. A nice aftermarket 12 bolt rearend. You would have plenty of money left over instead of dropping almost 20k into just finding a COPO 427 motor.

I want to thank everyone for the input and advice. I'm pretty sure of what I'm planning on doing, i just need to start putting some bst in to it. (bst=blood,sweat,tears)

One last thing - take lots of photos before anything else comes off the car, including the big-block-only detail stuff like stripe, disc brake valve, fuel lines, tags on the coil springs if they're still there, orange paint in jambs, inside of rear quarters where no emblem holes are, etc. In the absence of paper documentation you will at least have some photo documentation of how the car was before you began restoring it.

Dear Robert,

Listen to Chris R, he's right, just put a nice crate motor in the car with a proper aftermarket sturdy 12 bolt. The value of the "Super Car" is overated; I mean what are you going to do once it's been restored with the original dated equipment if you can find the "real" stuff? Watch it collect dust! You will spend a LOT OF DOUGH trying to find the real stuff and more buying it.

Anyone who knows anything will tell you the quality of the restoration is in the body, paint, and looks combined with mechanical cleanlisness. This combination is worth plenty, plus you don't have the build sheet. Maybe with a real build sheet it would worth it to do all the original type restoration.

Make it cool dude!

Fixed Good

Robert, drop me a line if you need anything for your Chevelle--got a bunch of stuff in the garage. I'm local (Detroit). Thanks, Tony