69 June Bums

[COPO PETE]

I had a gentleman contact me a while ago with regards to June COPO Camaro bums. His has the BE bum but after cleaning it up, the date was about a week after the build date. Says the rear end U and T bolts were very rusty making it obvious it was in the car a long time. He feels it is original but the date has him confused. I read somewhere once, that in June they were having problems getting rear ends on time and that some cars were set aside till the right one came in. Any comments on this. Brian, I'm not sure of the date on Frank Naples car that you did. His car was built about the same time. In fact 718 cars after this one according to the VIN. Franks car was shipped June 24 1969 and this car was shipped June 25 1969 according to GM of Canada records. Anyone seen this in the early to mid June cars?
Peter

[sixtiesmuscle]

This would be a good question for Jim Mattison. I think the man that was there at the time would have some valuable info. I don't think we can count on what people have or haven't seen on cars that are still around thirty years later. Any comments Jim?

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Not so fast there sixtiesmuscle!

I have collected the drivetrain component dates from many of the '70 Yenko Novas that were produced in 06B. All of these cars except one has at least one drivetrain component that is dated later than the build date of the car. It is usually the rear, sometimes the engine (or both), but never the transmission. (This is true of the non-06B cars as well, the trans is consistently dated earlier than the engine or rear).

I believe that the trim tag has the 'scheduled' build date, so I don't know if they were behind schedule or if they ran out of rears. The '70 COPO Novas have a unique code, 'CBW', and there were only two non-Yenko COPO Novas that went to Canada so we know that these owners did not swap rears with other COPO cars.

I would propose that what we see on 30 year old protecto plates and original rears are reliable proof that some drivetrain components can be dated later than the car's build date - especially June!
Marlin

[bkhpah]

Somebody has done thier homework. The June cars are notorious for having driveline components later that the body trim tag. My old Yenko 06A with POP had a June 19 BE. We have just finished a 06A Z/28. Every driveline part rear June 22, trans June 21, engine June 23, are original including a 481 distributor that was never removed from the car. All Z's should be 480's. This is very common among June 69 cars. I have seen a few other BE rears later than the build date with POP. This is a June thing only so far. Naples car was dated prior to the body. I have been told that a strike and the likley hood that the trim tag date was never moved forward are to blame for this. The date does not appear to move again till 07A ...BKH

[Edited by bkhpah (05-11-2001 at 09:20 AM).]

[COPO PETE]

Very interesting! Thanks for the info. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.
Peter

[JoeC]

In the MCR interview, Jim M. did make a comment about running short on the rears. He said they had to schedule cars further out in the year because they could not get the rear axles to build the cars.

[sixtiesmuscle]

Well Marlin, I was merely saying that Jim M. would be a great source for FACTS from back in the day, not, suppositions and assumptions that sometimes have to be made due to a lack of knowledgeable, first hand experience. That's nothing against what you & Brian have posted. It just seems that when we have info available from the man who was there when this situation developed, we should take advantage of it.

[Kurt S]

Brian hit on it. There were no other 06 weeks until 07A. Just one *long* 06A week. http://www.yenko.net/ubb/smilies/images/icons/smile.gif So an 06A car can have parts dated til the end of the month.

Trans' did sit for a while. Not common to have one dated near the assembly date.
And the trim tag was not the scheduled build date but the build date of the body.

The BE rears were the shortage, which is what causes the body #'s on COPO's to be off from regular cars.

[Charley Lillard]

The Cortez Silver that I had had a BE rear dated about a week later than the car. The BE code with the date was also on the Protecto plate.