OneStopRestoration's Special Orange 69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Coupe

[OneStopRestoration]

Note the rusted areas from the paint being crinkled so bad

[OneStopRestoration]

So i cut the tops of each side wrapper as I wanted to preserve date codes on the metal, top piece of the cowl and the Dash as its really the top piece of metal that goes over the cowl. These show the sand blasted cowl, donor top cowl, and original dash.

[OneStopRestoration]

This shows the adding of the side wrappers with butt welds that are ground smooth and replication of all the original spot welds across the cowl. What this also doesnt show is alot of hammer and dolly work on the parts of the firewall that were not perfectly flat, but now are.

Top cowl when in first, followed by the dash, then last was the side wrappers

[Bill Pritchard]

To try and answer questions posed by GMC Typhoon and jer earlier in this thread, the SS396 option on the two 300 Deluxe models (coupe and sedan) was not as unknown to many Chevrolet dealers as were the COPO cars. As Mitch pointed out, it was only available in the 1969 model year, intended to be in direct competition with the very popular Plymouth Road Runner and Dodge Super Bee. Problem was that while the Road Runner and Super Bee were a new concept in the 1968 model year, the Chevrolet Super Sport models had been around for a number of years as top-of-the-line offerings, with high grade interior trim and extra exterior ornamentation. Chevrolet customers were accustomed to this higher level of content on Super Sports, so when the lesser equipped 300 Deluxe Super Sports came out, they were not well received by the Chevrolet crowd.

As far as the L78 and L89 option availability, they were clearly listed on the back side of the order form as being available, and perhaps some dealerships didn't look at the back side of the order form, thinking all available options were on the front side. Any dealer that stocked or sold high performance cars certainly knew of those options, as they were both around for the 1968 model year also.