The term "COPO Car" or "Coh Poe Car" has developed into a muscle car buzz word normally used to describe a specially ordered limited edition high performance Chevrolet product such as the 1968 Nova SS 396/375 TH400, the 1969 ZL1 Camaro, the 1969 427/425 Camaro and Chevelle, or the 1970 LT1 Nova. The history is not exactly all clear but from what I can tell the origin of the term is from the Chevrolet Central Office which was a Division of GM. A department in the Central Office was the Chevrolet Fleet & Special Order Department that processed the paper work for the sales and marketing of Chevy Special Vehicles. These special vehicles may have been telephone trucks, taxi cabs, police cars, etc. Among these normally utilitarian vehicles were some hi po cars built to race. As far back as 1957, Chevy Central Office printed a book called "1957 Chevrolet Stock Car Competition Guide." This book told you how to order a 57 Chevy 150 Sedan with hi po cam, pistons, and even Corvette FI. All parts were RPO so the term COPO was not used but the book was published by Chevrolet Central Office. I have a copy of this book and it actually shows how to prepare a race car. I have read that Smokey Yunick had helped Chevy with this book. The next year I have in my notes was 1962 when Chevy wanted to run a competitive drag car. The hot ticket back then was to use aluminum parts to build light weight cars. Chevy built some "parts counter" aluminum front ends for the Impala/Belair and some people say that some 1962 Impalas were built at the factory with alu nose and a special 409 with a 1963 Z11 type intake manifold. This may have been some type of COPO car (not sure). In 1963 the 427 Z11 was built using RPOs not COPO and 50 or more were made to qualify it for NHRA competition. The next car I have notes on is the special order COPO Corvairs that Don Yenko ordered to build his Yenko Stingers to race in SCCA where a minimum of 100 were required. In 1968 Yenko special ordered some COPO Camaros with 140 speedometers and other options but the facts on this car are not all clear. Then came the 1968 COPO Nova 396/375 TH400 cars ordered by Fred Gibb and Dick Harrell. Then the 1969 ZL1 and L72 cars. In 1970 was a COPO LT1 Nova and a number for a special big Camaro rear spoiler that became standard in 1971. There is some evidence that Yenko ordered a COPO Vega in 1971 but not many facts on this car. I am sure there were other COPO cars. The COPO cars as they are known today were ordered to "beat the system." Using the COPO process you were able to get a non SS big block 427 car or special paint, or trans and rear end or an alu motor or other parts not available on regular order sheets. here is a link on the 1957 Black Window race car which appears to be the first factory race car from Chevy not counting the prototype cars and racing Corvettes they were building.
http://www.randomunity.com/superrod/...lackwidow.html