Factory Street Racing

**copo69** · #1 06-02-2002, 05:57 PM

Jim, I remember you relating a story about some factory (both Chevy and other manufacturers) people and cars being caught participating in some street racing. I think you said it made the newspapers. Do you remember when it was? I'd like to maybe find the articles on it.

Jim Mattison · #2 06-02-2002, 07:35 PM

Not one of the high points of my GM career! I damn near got fired over it, even though I wasn't racing. The story makes for some interesting, almost humorous, conversation over "milk and cookies", but I assure you that it wasn't very funny at the time!!!

After all the dust had settled, I think that the Big Three was able to call in some favors and bury the story. I've tried for years to find a copy of the newspaper article, but cannot find it.

**Stefano** · #3 06-02-2002, 08:19 PM

Jim,
Did you have the latitude to pick your company car at the time? Were there any Special Cars or even possible COPOs which were used as your daily drivers?

Jim Mattison · #4 06-02-2002, 11:25 PM

Over the years that I was at Chevrolet, I've had some great cars that I've either owned or were at my disposal. The car that I had during the imfamous "street racing" incident was a pre-production ZL1 Camaro.

If I only knew that these cars would become so collectible/valuable, I'd have done a better job of putting them away in my collection. At the time, the Chevrolet Central Office fleet included most everthing and anything that you can imagine: a police demo Impala, with a 510 cid engine, one of each of our COPO cars, plus a complete compliment of standard production and performance vehicles.

Being the youngest member of the group, I wasn't perminently assigned a company vehicle. However, I did get to use all of the factory "hot rods", because they didn't have air conditioning, which was real necessity in Detroit rush hour traffic (especially in a suit), plus the guys knew that I liked the performance models anyhow! For me, it was like being at "Toys-R-Us" for big boys......and getting paid, too!!!

**Stefano** · #5 06-03-2002, 01:02 AM

A pre-production ZL1 Camaro! Was this one of the two Black w/Gold stripes GM engineering cars.

I have been told that a Chicago area dealer had ended up buying one of these ZL1s when the auto show circuit had ended.

It was to have been a very early car and was fitted with a JL8 disk brake set up. It may also have had a fold down rear seat.

Does this Camaro sound familiar?

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