Beschreibung:

The most famous, rare, desirable and fast cars of the last years of the Sixties are the few, famous, lightweight COPO Chevrolets delivered with the aluminum block ZL-1 engine. They are the subject of continuing search, restoration and probably more legends, tall tales and tributes than anything else in the history of American Muscle. The premier examples of these machines are the sixty-nine COPO 9560 ZL-1 powered Camaros built, appropriately enough, in 1969. COPO stands for Central Office Production Order, a system developed within General Motors to accommodate short run production requests for vehicles with features not offered within the Regular Production Options available for retail sale. Most COPO vehicles were nothing special. In fact, they were usually less than ordinary vehicles like taxicabs, police cars, trucks and cars for utility fleets. Stuff that got used to death and then was discarded. A few performance-oriented dealers got the idea that they could use the COPO system to order small quantities – just enough to meet sanctioning bodies’ qualifications as “production” – of high performance cars outside the usual system. No taxicabs these, they’d run just quarter-mile routes and run them over and over again. The ZL-1 engine was derived from the aluminum big block which GM developed to power the legendary unlimited mid-engined road racing cars of the Canadian-American Challenge Series, the Can-Am. Tremendously popular both with spectators and in the media, the Can-Am attracted high profile attention from manufacturers vying to keep their names prominently displayed on the results lists with McLaren, Lola and Chaparral. They poured engineering and development time and money into the pursuit of ever more power. One of the lasting developments to come from the Can-Am engine programs was the aluminum big block Chevrolet engine which powered the dominant McLaren team. Chevrolet didn’t have a Regular Production Option 427 cubic inch engine in the Camaro line but dealers could order COPO 9561, the iron 427. It could be had with either Turbo Hydra-Matic automatic and 4-speed manual transmissions. Production wasn’t difficult – the 396 that was an RPO with 325, 350 or 375 horsepower was the same size and approximately the same weight – but it wasn’t inexpensive, either. It took commitment of a different order to initiate the order that kicked off COPO 9560, the aluminum block 427-powered Camaro. There had to be 50 produced to meet drag racing’s standards for production classes and that was a serious hit on any dealer’s floorplan line of credit. The one who stood up was Fred Gibb Chevrolet in LaHarpe, Illinois. Chevrolet posted a retail price of $4,160.50 just for COPO 9560. To put that in perspective the base Camaro Sport Coupe listed for $2,727 and the most expensive RPO Camaro engine, the 396/375hp aluminum cylinder head L89, was $710.95. Gibb took delivery of fifty COPO 9560 Camaros including the one offered here by Reggie Jackson. 33 of them were unsold and eventually were returned to GM for redistribution to other dealers, including this one which eventually was delivered to its first owner through Dan Streakley Chevrolet in Temple Texas. In addition to the aluminum 427 cubic inch engine (rated publicly at 430hp, which is less than 3/4 of its real power) the ZL-1 package included a special ducted cold air induction hood, transistorized ignition, dual exhausts, large capacity cooling system, special suspension and 4.10 Positraction rear axle. This car came equipped with the Turbo Hydra-Matic automatic transmission and power front disc brakes. That’s it. The heater was standard, but the radio wasn’t. Its weight wasn’t insignificant, either, so the ZL-1’s driver had to endure waiting in the staging line without entertainment. Painted Hugger Orange with the plainest (and lightest) of plain black vinyl interiors, its early history isn’t known. It is the first of Reggie’s COPO 9560 ZL-1 Camaros – he would eventually own five.