Yesterday I saw a 67 SS 427 Chevelle. I talked to the owner and asked him about the SS 427 emblems it had on it and he said he thought some previous owner had put them on and put in the 427 engine. He didn't know what the 427 engine came from.
My question is where did they come from ? They look just like the 67 SS 396 emblems and look original especially since the one on the rear fits the contour of the boby.

I know yearone offers on em' as a not factory but common swap in their emblem section of the chevelle catalog. I belive only fullsize(ie Impalas) came with 427's from the factory in 67.
Steve

The only vehicle that came from the factory(that we know of for sure) with the cross flag 427 emblems were a hand full of Impalas, and Biscanes, lotsa rumors have been around for years that a few 67 427 Chevelles were produced but nobody so far (as far as I know) has been either able to prove or disprove this rumor, Skip or Al are the 67 xperts maybe they can shed alittle more light on his subject, but my question has always been If they never produced them why is there an emblem being reproduced for em????? Good Luck , POPS

Guys,
This is what I know and believe about the crossed flag 427 emblems. These are GM, not repro, and went on the 66 and 67 full size cars (Impala, Biscayne, Caprice) that were equipped with the optional 427 engine. I remember seeing no optioned 2 door Biscaynes with only the L72 427-425HP and Muncie 4 speed,4.88 posi axle, strictly for racing. These cars had the emblems on them, as well as the well optioned Caprice with the L36 385 HP 427 engine.
Around this era, (1966 and 67) some high performance minded dealers, such as Balwin and Yenko, offered their customers( for a high performance price) the opportunity to have a 427 A body Chevelle. GM had a strict corporate policy at the time about no A body having over 400 cubic inch displacement coming out of the factory. The GTOs had 389s,The 442's had 400 cubic inch motors, and even Buick had the A body Gran Sport with the 401 (they cheated by 1)nailhead engine.
Anyway, these dealers would order L72(427-425HP) shortblocks and Chevelle Supersports with the L78 396-375HP engine. Now these two engines were practically identical(except for the shortblock) and used the same heads,intake,carburators, camshaft, etc.It was simply a matter of exchanging the shortblocks, and using the existing components of the L78 396 engine on the L72 427 shortblock. For a little extra, if the customer wanted to advertise, the crossed flag 427 emblems(a mandatory stock item) were added as well. For 1967, GM bowed under Federal government anti high performance pressure , and even cancelled the L78 option for the Chevelle. They also cancelled the tripower options that were available in 1966 on the GTOs and 442s, and had been planned on the Chevelle SuperSports for 1967 in two versions,L64 and L67. One was going to have square port heads for the L78, the other oval port heads for the L34. No HP ratings were ever released. I built a prototype 1967 Chevelle SS tripower according to what was in the Chevelle assembly manual, but that's another story. Anyway, a lot of high performance dealers were up in arms about this anti high performance policy, so they and GM's central office conjoured up the COPO plan. (Central Office Production Order)A minimum of 500 units were needed to make the order happen,(kinda like a fleet order) and starting in late May of 1967, 500 1967 Chevelle SS 396s with the L78 engines were ordered for these various high performance dealers. Most of these were low optioned models for racing purposes only. Another 112 L78s made it through production as well.Many of these 500 L78 Chevelles had the L78 396 replaced by the L72 427 to satisfy the customer's need for speed. This was a slick way to bypass GM's anti-racing policy. Oldsmobile also did this with the 1968 Hurst Oldsmobile, using the 455 cubic inch engine. These all went to Hurst. It wasn't until 1970 that GM allowed bigger engines in their A bodies. Hello LS6 454! As a part of all this, that is why a original matching numbers 1967 L78 is so rare today.I've documented only about 15 that still exist. I just documented another one in TN, that was inherited from the owner's grandfather. He was 40 years old when he ordered it to tow his boat.The grandson didn't know what he has, and he E-mailed me for info on the car. When he sent me all the numbers, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It's a real one, and I told him what he had.( No, he's not ready to sell it yet, too sentimental)They either had the engines swapped, or didn't survive the drag racing. Another interesting question is what happened to all those swapped out L78 blocks???Sorry to be so long winded, but I hope this helps clear up the mystery of the crossed flag 427 turbo-jet emblems. And Rainer is right about the two piece 427 fender emblems used on the 2124 Impala SS 427s produced in 1967.


[Note: This message was edited by Skip]

Guys -

Skip is definitely the expert on this one, but I'm gonna add that on '67 Impala SS cars, there was a special 2-piece 427 emblem used on the front fenders, rather than the Turbo-Jet emblem.

Rainer

Once again you've failed to mention the optional GPS (Global Positioning System). These came through the high performance dealers such as Yanker.

What has GPS got to do with the emblem question, I don't understand ?


Skip, thanks for the info, I think I'm going to see if he will let me look at his engine ID numbers.

Sorry Dean, it was a joke.

Ok, I see http://www.chevelles.com/forum/smile.gif