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1960s–present

The dealer-tuners

Dana, Nickey, Baldwin-Motion, Berger, Yenko

Yellow 1969 Camaro Yenko/SC
1969 Camaro Yenko/SC (COPO) Photo: Sicnag, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; plates and faces blurred Original photograph License

Independent Chevrolet dealers turned Camaros into cars Chevrolet itself would not sell. A few of them, working with Vince Piggins, got the factory to build big-block cars through the COPO system.

These dealers fitted 427 engines outside the ordinary Camaro engine catalog before factory COPO 427 orders became available in 1969. Each has an entry among the rare and significant Camaros. The nominal SS396 name also covered late-1969 402-cubic-inch applications; it does not establish the engine's exact displacement.

Yenko Chevrolet, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Don Yenko fitted Corvette L72 427s to SS Camaros from 1967 and in 1969 had Chevrolet build them on the line as COPO 9561. He sold 198 by the Camaro Research Group's count; other accounts give 201.

Close-up of a green Camaro fender with a Camaro script badge and a Yenko shield emblem beneath it
Yenko-badged Camaro, fender emblem detail (model year not specified in source) Photo: Lee, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Original photograph License

Fred Gibb Chevrolet, La Harpe, Illinois. Fred Gibb was not a performance dealer until an employee started winning races in a Z/28. His initial order accounted for 50 of the 69 all-aluminum COPO 9560 ZL1s.

How the 69 ZL1s were first ordered
How the 69 ZL1s were first ordered Gibb: 50 cars; Other dealers: 19 cars; Total: 69 cars. These are initial orders, not final retail sales. Many of Gibb’s cars were redistributed to other dealers. Gibb 50 cars Other dealers 19 cars Total 69 cars
These are initial orders, not final retail sales. Many of Gibb’s cars were redistributed to other dealers. Original CamaroFacts diagram. Camaro Research Group reference.

Nickey Chevrolet, Chicago. Founded in 1925 by E.J. and Jack Stephani, Nickey grew into one of the largest performance-parts operations in the country and, with Bill Thomas and Dick Harrell, sold 427 Camaros in Stage I, II and III tune.

Baldwin-Motion, Long Island. Joel Rosen's Motion Performance worked with Ed Simonin's Baldwin Chevrolet from 1967: customers ordered an SS 396 through Baldwin, and Rosen fitted a 427 in SS (425 hp) or Phase III (500+ hp) tune. Rosen guaranteed quarter-mile times or the customer's money back and reportedly never paid out. The partnership ran to 1974, was revived in 2005, and Rosen died in October 2023.

Dana Chevrolet, Los Angeles, built about 50 L72 427 Camaros from 1967 to 1969, engineered by Dick Guldstrand.

Berger Chevrolet, Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the second-largest COPO 427 dealer after Yenko, with about 50 cars in 1969, and in 2000–2002 commissioned the GMMG-built Berger SS Camaros.

Red 2002 Camaro SS with a "435 HP" GMMG Berger Hot Rod Edition rocker stripe
2002 Camaro SS, GMMG-built Berger Hot Rod Edition Photo: Mr.choppers, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Original photograph License

Did you know

  • The 1969 COPO Camaros used an existing fleet and special-order procedure to obtain factory 427 engines outside the regular catalog. That describes the ordering route for those cars; it is separate from a dealer replacing an engine after assembly and from the SS396 name used on 402-cubic-inch cars.
  • The 1969 arithmetic: 1,066 big-block COPO Camaros less the 69 ZL1s gives 997 L72 cars. Beyond Yenko and Berger, Emmert Chevrolet in Detroit took about 20 (in special-order colors). Fred Gibb took 50 of the ZL1s and sold 13, and a Rhode Island dealer, Scuncio Chevrolet, had ZL1 number 60.
  • Joel Rosen's Motion Performance began as a service station in the late 1950s, took the Motion Performance name in 1963 and moved to Baldwin, New York, in 1966. Before the Camaro, Rosen had campaigned Cobras, including Clem Hoppe's 427 King Cobra, which ran a 10.64-second quarter-mile at 131 mph.
  • Nickey was a landmark. After Chicago's Kennedy Expressway construction in 1960 it moved to 4501 W. Irving Park Road, in a facility that grew to about 200,000 square feet. The dealership was sold in 1973 and became Keystone Chevrolet, the Nickey Chicago speed shop lasted until 1977, and collector Stefano Bimbi bought the name in 2002, before Nickey Performance relaunched with the 2010 Camaro.
  • Berger dates its Grand Rapids dealership to August 1926, founded by William H. Berger II at 1034 Wealthy Street. Dale Berger Jr. started the High-Performance Parts Department in the late 1960s, and by 1967 it was getting 50 pieces of mail a day for catalogs and parts. Berger says it built 100 of its SS Camaros.
  • Dana Chevrolet in South Gate, California, wasn't only a Camaro shop. Its High-Performance Center, managed by Dick Guldstrand, entered a 1967 L88 Corvette at Le Mans, where it set a GT-class record of 171.5 mph down the Mulsanne before a rod went through the block. Guldstrand is also credited as the first to win a race with a Camaro Z28.
Sources for these details

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