Buyer Beware

[COPO PETE]

George Zappora called me today. He is the man from GM of Canada that documents the Canadian cars from Oshawa. Seems he is getting the odd creative person taking their GM of Canada documentation and going on a computer, getting the right font and adding the odd option. The last one he had was a non COPO car but it was a car being sold as documented with 4 wheel disk. Somewhere along the line, that line was added and sold as such. This does not happen very much but it would seem before you dish out a pile of money for a Canadian COPO, and they show you the GM of Canada documentation, first make sure the documentation is made out in the sellers name. Contact GM yourself and spend the extra money to get the copy from GM itself. Ed also has a lot of this information and you should get him to document it as well. I have a lot of the GM sheets for COPO's, and there's a lot I don't. I will not document it for you but if I have the sheet for a particular car you want to buy, I will gladly verify it with my information. I have been running a Canadaian COPO Registry for about five years. I think it's important to have a datta base for a lot of this information. If some of you guys with Canadian cars don't mind, it would be appreciated if you fax me your GM of Canada sheets. Your names and such will be kept confidential. This is for Camaro's and Chevelles, and Nova's. I want to crunch the #'s to see how many of a certain colour, how many RS's, and which dealer sold the most.etc. etc. This is a Canadian car thing only and has Ed's blessings. I'm not trying to take anything away from what he is doing. The great thing about Canadian cars is that they can be documented easily, so make sure you do it properly. Fax #519-287-5530
Peter

[Mr70]

Peter
Are you familiar with a pair of 1969 Chevelle COPO's shipped to Canada from Baltimore? They were together on the assembly line.They both came Monaco Orange and I have the buildsheet for them.My friend in NH.,Harry Snow,used to own them and showed them at the NCOA Atlanta show in 1995-96.As well as Indy Superchevy in 1996.
One was a Manual,the other Auto.trans.
He sold one at Carlisle 4 years ago.And the other is here in Illinois.They are both frame off resto's.Let me know if you want their buildsheets.
Rick Peters

[Edited by mr70 (05-16-2001 at 10:22 PM).]

[COPO PETE]

Thanks for the reply MR.70. I've only had one Orange listed so far, so yes please send me a copy of those. It would be greatly appreciated. Is one of those the same car "9566 BA" as posted here owns, or was there maybe more orange cars that came to Canada? This is the kind of info I want to find out.It would be nice to get the copy of that other Daytona Yellow Chevelle as it sounds like a twin to mine. Thanks again!
Peter

[Casey Marks]

Pete is absolutely correct. GM Canada records can't be beat. As a point of reference, the only way to COMPLETELY verify the correctness of an Olds "W" car is to either have a totally numbers matching car (which is harder and harder to come by), or HOPEFULLY have a car that was shipped to Canada. The snag revolves around a records vault fire in 1977 in Lansing. All pre-77 Olds records were lost. Therefore, the only records that exist are the GM Canada EXPORT records for those cars. Luckily, my W-31 was a Canadian car, so I have all of the cool GM Canada paperwork - - Bill of Lading with all options associated with serial number, blah, blah, blah ....... neat stuff.

Pete - does George Zappora do all of the GM Canada documentation, or is he only responsible for the Oshawa cars ???

[COPO PETE]

Casey; From what I understand all the documentation comes out of Oshawa. George is the head of the department but there are people working under him. You may have names like Roy Mercer,( who I believe used to be the head guy), or a few others, but I have been told it all comes out of the same office in Oshawa.
Peter

[Mr70]

Peter
I have found out this is the same Monaco Orange COPO that is today in Tennessee.It was In Hawthorne Woods Ill.but was sold down south.It has a twin in 4 speed form,but that car had no buildsheet.So you have this buildsheet already.
Rick

[9566 BA]

Peter
I bought the automatic manaco orange car that Harry Snow used to own, from a guy who lived in Hawthorn Woods IL in Febuary of this year. I would be glad to send you copy of build sheet . It is the same one Mr 70 is refering to, so you may allready have it. Jeff

[bkhpah]

The Chevelle you are talking about I may have seen at Carlisle for sale a year or two ago. Could that be the same car?..BKH

[COPO PETE]

Thanks MR70, Jeff is going to send me his stuff. (thanks Jeff). It looks as though there were at least three Orange cars, two M22 and one auto. Mr 70 ;if you can did up anything on that auto car it would be greatly appreciated. Got your fax Rob, thanks. Thanks to everyone else, keep it coming!
Peter

[9566 BA]

A guy in Texas sold a manaco orange 69 copo
4 speed car in hemmings in march ,I beleive to some one in seattle I think. It wasnt the twin version of the auto copo I have . He had owned the car for about ten years and had it restored. Is this one of the 3 orange canada cars you know pete? I am sending my info shortly Jeff

[bkhpah]

I know of a Orange COPO original paint Chevelle sitting ina garage in Ohio. It is an auto on the tree...BKH

[Denis]

Here is a link to photos of that orange 69 COPO Chevelle from Texas. It's now in Spokane, WA. Good chance that it'll be at the reunion.

http://www.users.qwest.net/~v10hooked/copo.htm

[COPO PETE]

Denis; So, is this a Canadian car? And if so, is it another Central Chev car and if so does anyone know the vin of this car? Jeff's car turned out to be a Central Chev car so I'm going to see one of the old salesmen that worked there and sold a lot of theses cars. He kept all his records and bills of sale. If he sold it, he'll have it. Also Brian, that coloumn shift car...was it Canadian?
Peter

[Denis]

I really don't know much about the car except that the current owner purchased it recently from someone in Texas or thereabouts. The current owner has the build sheet but didn't say if he had the Canadian paperwork. I would think, if it was a Canadian car, that someone along the way would've obtained more than just the build sheet.

[bkhpah]

I do not believe it is Canadian. But I am not 100% sure...BKH