1974 Nova 9C1 COPO Brass Hat Police Car

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by 9C1Beater

Keith...that sounds like an awesome car! Any Chevy cop car from 1974 is rare. Most were Belaires, and I think I've only seen one photo of a Chevelle cop car. You can hijack this thread and post pics and info on here. What engine and options does it have, where was it used, and what condition is it in? Does it still have its original Blue Dot spare? Those tires would be impossible to find now, I'm sure.

My dad ordered it for my Mom to drive. He found out the police package was available on the base Malibu so he checked all the boxes.

They didn't want to build a two door at first, so the order got rejected. He called Central Office and reminded them that it showed as available in their literature and he thought they should build it as ordered. They relented and put the order back in the system.

He ordered it with the same interior as our '73 Monte Carlo: black and grey herringbone weave with swivel buckets and the rally dash. They bounced it again because of the interior. He called 'em back and showed them in the engineering summary that all of those options were available. So they relented and put it back in the queue.

After another delay they called to tell him which week the car was going to be built. Somehow he knew during that timeframe that they were only building hardtops with the small opera window and he wanted the large window. When he called to complain they finally said "Fine. Here's the guy's name in Oshawa. Just call him and tell him what you want."

So he did.

It was built in late September of 1973. It's a 454/TH400, 3.42 posi. Came with HD alternator and front and rear swaybars, and the aforementioned 8" wide Corvette rallys. PS/PB, non AC, manual windows and locks.

Mom drove it four years and I got it after that. I don't have any photos from the beginning but pictures of the car started cropping up around 1978 when I started driving it.

As of 2018 I have been racing this same car for 40 years.

http://www.superchevy.com/features/s...hevy-chevelle/

Originally Posted by 9C1Beater

Harry Hammond said that he and Jim Ingle were under the gun time-wise to build the Nova police car prototype.

I don't know Harry but I have worked with Jim Ingle.

He was a famous Corvette development engineer at the time; I don't know how I weaseled it but somehow I was on a Corvette ride trip and did a rotation or two with him in the passenger seat.

The thing about Corvettes is, since they only seat two, you can have some really good intimate conversations for 1/2 hour or 45 minutes at a crack.

He said to me "...you know, I'm actually kinda jealous of you truck guys..."

Here he is, a GM development engineer on the CORVETTE programs, so I said "Jim, why would you say that?"

He replied "People NEED trucks; people don't really need Corvettes.

K