The Term "COPO"

[Unreal]

Jim,
There has been a discussion in the "For Sale" seciton regarding the use of the term COPO, and I thought I'd bring it here. It started because a guy was selling a 73 Chevelle SS454 wagon. The seller claimed it to be a COPO because it recieved special paint under the COPO ordering process.

Some contend that any Central Office processed car is a COPO. Others contend that the term COPO was coined by the musclecar hobby, once it learned that supercars were build through the COPO system.

So the question is, when you were there, did you or others at Central Office, or on the line, refer to Taxis, Police vehicles, etc as "COPOs"? If not, how were they described informally? Also, what term did you use when discussing the supercars? COPO, 9561, or what?
Thanks,

[Keith Tedford]

In the front of the Chevelle/Monte Carlo parts catalogue #P014 there is the following statement under the heading Special Equipment.
"Each year a limited volume of vehicles is sold with Special Equipment other than regular production options. For service parts prior to 1967 refer to C.S.L. (Canadian Special Parts List) Catalogue, and for subsequent years refer to C.O.P.O. (Central Office Production Order) Catalogue. Copies are available on request from the Parts Catalogue Section, Oshawa."
I bought this catalogue and nothing was mentioned about any of our popular COPO numbers. Curious.

[copo9566aa]

Sorry but this board has a big problem of identity.

"This board is Dedicated to the promotion and preservation
of the Chevrolet dealer built Supercars and COPO cars". /ubbthreads/images/icons/confused.gif

1- What is a Supercars
2- What is a COPO cars
3- Chevrolet Dealer, this is just for US Hi-Perf dealers ? (Yenko-Dana..)
or US and Canadian (Gorries-Central...) Chevrolet Hi-Perf dealers.

In the world of Musclecars the term Supercars is dedicated to a
Mid-Size Musclecars (Chevelle-Torino-GTX-ect..)

Suggestions
"This board is Dedicated to the promotion and preservation
of the Chevrolet dealer built Special Musclecars and Hi-Perf
COPO cars". ????

[Jim Mattison]

First off, when we were building these COPOs and "special" paint cars and trucks, we had no idea that some of these vehicles would become so collectible and valuable years later. If I had known, my garage would have been stuffed with a lot more cars than I have today!!!

We at Chevrolet never refered to a "special" paint order as being a COPO. Nor did we concider a car or truck with a non-recommended color/trim as being a COPO, although they would come through our office.

A COPO order was only issued on a car or truck that had "special" Chevrolet Engineering equipment installed on it. Most of these COPO orders were for taxis, police cars, the telephone companies and other municipalities. Does that make one of the many taxis that we built for New York City, or a telephone truck for Pacific Bell a collectible and valuable COPO vehicle???........Hardly!!!

Chevrolet never defined what the collectible COPOs were! The collector community did! It has always been my understanding that the definition of a collectible or valuable COPO car is a vehicle from one of the few "factory hot rod" programs that came through Chevrolet Engineering and Chevrolet Fleet & Special Order Departments in the 60's and early 70's.

Jim Mattison

[Charley Lillard]

I gotta get me a New York Taxi......Yellow of coarse.

[Stefano]

Then you would have three yellow taxi cabs /ubbthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif Shor, how was the ride in Charley's 2002 ZL1?

[JoeC]

The term COPO was not coined by the car magazines. It is shown in many Chevy documents. The way I understand it, COPO was a process used to order options that could not be ordered using the normal RPO process of ordering options. For example - you could have ordered a 1969 Corvette with RPO ZL1 but it was not available on a 1969 Camaro. You could have ordered an Impala with RPO L72 but RPO L72 was not available in a Chevelle or Camaro. The COPO process was used to build hi po cars that Chevy didn't really want to build. Some COPO options were parts such as the 1971 style spoilers used on a few 1970 Camaros, but more often they were combinations assembled to build a complete vehicle that was then given its own COPO number. For example, you can order a 69 Camaro with RPO Z28 and it optioned the car with the 302 engine, front disk brakes, 12 bolt rear, and other hi po parts that were mandatory with RPO Z28. It also prevented you from ordering certain options such as AC and AT. Now here is where the tricky part is that got the Chevy gear heads all excited. NHRA required a minimum of 50 factory built units to qualify in Super Stock class drag racing. Fred Gibb wanted to run a Camaro in Super Stock. He ordered 50 Camaros and he wanted to run the ZL1 engine but it was not available as RPO ZL1 so they put in an order for COPO 9560 to have them built. Like RPO Z28, it was a combination with mandatory options such as alu 427 and special BE rear, etc and also made other option unavailable such as AC. Fred Gibb had used the COPO trick the year before to get 50 special L78 Novas with TH400 trans that was not normally available with the RPO L78 option.

[Unreal]

That was a great explanation by Jim and Joe. One thing I am unclear about, though.

Did the boys at Central Office use the term "coh-poh" when referencing any of the cars that were ordered through the COPO process?
I understand the point about COPO9561AA or whatever, showing up on the paperwork, but that does not mean that back then, they were referred to as "co-pohs". Most cars were ordered through the RPO process, and RPO showed up on the paperwork, but I've never heard of them referred to as "Ar-pohs" or "Ar-pee-oh's"

[JoeC]

Jim was there so he can answer better then me but I believe the term "coh-poh" was started by the magazines in the mid 1980s. Before that most of the magazines said factory 427s did not exist. I never liked the term "coh-poh". I like to call them 427 COPOs. Some dealers ran ads in 1969 calling them "factory built 427 Chevelles and Camaros". A guy I know who worked at a dragstrip in 1969 calls them "425 horse Camaros". In Jim's post above he called them "factory hot rod" which is a good name because the hi performance COPOs were literally built to race. In my opinion Chevy would have never built them if it were not for the NHRA rules. They tried to keep them low profile with no 427 emblems or even SS emblems except for the 1968 Nova TH400. The 1970 LT1 Novas didn't even have any SS body parts. The 1970 Camaro COPO spoilers were pushed through so they can be used on the 70 Camaro Trans Am race cars.

[hvychev]

I got to thinking after reading this post. You really have to thank god for racing. What if the different race organizations such as NASCAR, NHRA, AHRA, etc. had not made minimum production rules on certian cars to be raced in a particular class? We would never have had cars like the ones that we love so much and focus on in this board. Or you would never have cars like the Superbird/Daytona, or the Ford Taledega, etc. Just an interesting thought. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

[SS427]

I think our hobby would be non existent if not for the racing organizations. These are the reasons why the manufactures did what they did with these cars and without those organizations, we would likely have nothing. Just look what they have done for the trucks in recent years.

[Kurt S]

I agree that the most popular use of the term 'COPO' is for hi-po cars. But a 396/325hp 4 door Chevelle built for the CHiP was also a COPO as was a fleet of cars with trailer hitches.
Realize and accept that the COPO term encompasses more that just hi-po's. COPO was any order that required some engineering/thought as to how to build it and wasn't handled by the RPO system. As Jim states, hi-po's were just one aspect of the COPO system, but it is the reason the COPO system is now known about. Of course that opens the door for abuse of the term by taxi owners, but what can you do. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

As Jim also states and the limited documentation I've seen shows, the ordering of the special colors was not a COPO process. A more accurate statement is that special paint needed Central Office approval.

What throws the special paint nomenclature issue up in the air is when someone advertises a car as a COPO and it clearly says 'Spec Paint / COPO' on the buildsheet, I can't argue about them advertising it as a COPO. It may just have been the person who manually input the comments on that sheet at that one plant used the term. I still agree that the terms special paint and COPO don't go together. And it doesn't mean it's a desireable COPO. /ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif

[copo9566aa]

sometimes it is necessary to seek in the baskets to find any good information about COPO process...
This is just a remark.

[JoeC]

The 73 Chevelle wagon has COPO typed on the build sheet. So it appears that special paint has something to do with the COPO process. It is only for the paint not a hi po option. Same with the Yenko Chevelles with special paint. There are three COPO option codes on the build sheet listed below the RPO options. The 427 COPO code, the Yenko COPO code, and a special paint code all on the same line. At least in these two examples the paint appears to be included as a COPO option. Why else would it be right on the build sheet as a COPO option?

[Kurt S]

Joe,
I'm not following:
> The 427 COPO code, the Yenko COPO code, and a special paint code all on the same line. At least in these two
> examples the paint appears to be included as a COPO option.

If there isn't a COPO code listed it isn't a COPO item.
They put all comments in the same area of the sheets. It just happens to follow the other COPO's and require the approval of the same office.
There's no engineering required for a different paint color, just authorization.

As for the wagon, that was 73 and they may have used the term at that plant to indicate there was approval by the Central Office. Who knows? I don't put a lot of weight in that sheet.....

[JoeC]

I see what you mean Kurt but I just can't figure out why the special paint COPO 427 Chevelles have no paint code on the trim tag but has a paint code next to the COPO numbers on the build sheet. The SS 396 Chevelles with special paint have the paint code on the trim tag in normal location. It appears to be part of the COPO option but I am not sure.

[copo9566aa]

Thanks Joe,
this is the question that i`m asking since many years.

[elcamino]

I was around back in those days and ordered a new 1970 SS454 (LS5) from Public Chevrolet in Calumet, MI in spring of 1970. I remember seeing ads for Nickey Chev in Chicago. I had wanted a Buick GS-455 but the local Buick dealer would not order the car for me. Said they did not want to sell any of those cars and to go somewhere else. My 2002 TA came from this Dealer which is still in the same family. I wish I could say I still had that car in the garage. Unfortunately I could not afford to drive the car because of the lousy mileage (10mpg) and high insurance. I went to work for the M-DOT and traveling all over SW michigan on constuction projects was draining my wallet and I traded it for a 1972 El Camino SS350. The car sat on a dealers lot for over a year.

<font color="red">So if I understand it.
A few dealers talked Chevy into building these race cars and to get it built they untilized the COPO process because there was a policy at GM about how big an engine could be installed as a RPO in Camaro and Chevelle, nothing over 400 cid. Then in 1970 all hell broke loose and you could get over 400 CID in the Chevelles and no more need for the COPO process. The COPO system was in existance long before the factory hot rods were built and since those were only a drop in the bucket. little info was published in GM parts etc. </font color> We would get special equipment vehicles at work (state of mich) but I don't know if they were copo's. My '99 suburban was an oddball and built for fleet. Took over a year thru Wheels and when I had brake problems they had to call Chevy to get the right part numbers because none of the parts that the books had would fit. Was a '99 3/4 4x4 sururban on a 1 ton chassis, work truck with Silverado cloth interior and special option package.