[William]

The JL8 option was released with lots of press coverage around spring 1968. Hot Rod covered it with a feature article; Car and Driver did a comparison test of a 1968 Z/28-RS with cross-ram, JL8, TI, headers [where is THAT car...] against a tunnel-port 302 Mustang, complete with F60 x 15 tires even Goodyear didn't know about. Of course the Camaro won.

Despite all of this and JL8 being listed in the 1968 Camaro assembly manual no '68 is known to have been built with it.

For 1969 it appears Chevrolet had every intention of having JL8 available at the start of 1969 Camaro production-it is listed on the 6-68 rev of the 1969 Camaro dealer order form and mentioned in many early ads. The reality is it was not released to production until around February 1969. The earliest known production installation is on a documented 02D car built at Norwood.

JL8 appears to have been dropped as an option May-June 1969. The latest known installation is 06A.