"Swedish COPO" up for auction in Florida

[jannes_z-28]

That's sad...

But I can understand it, there isn't any buyers for this kind of car over here. Not that can or will to put up that kind of money for a "rusty" Camaro.

I know some of its history, it has been covered in a few magazines and I wrote an article about it for the Swedish Camaro club magazine.

The rumors says that a guy ordered a Z/28 from one of the importers in the mid 70s. When they had the car in their showroom they called the guy and he refused it since it had a bigblock and wasn't a Z/28. Bummer, but no one knew about the COPOs then.

It got sold and had a bad life the first ten years and its condition became bad. It ended up on a scrapheap with a non-working engine. A guy with a Nova prepped for the strip wanted it and did a trade and got some money for the Nova too. Must have been the best COPO deal in the World!

New owner started to work on the car and discovered some strange things, like the beefier converter and that both the engine and the trans had the cars VIN stamped on them. He started to do some research and found out that this was the true thing, a real 427 COPO Camaro.

The rest is history, Anders bought it from him some time later. It is very rusty around the dashboard and the VIN-plate is rusted away and it has gotten a new VIN-plate applied by General Motors in Sweden in the drivers doorpost.

It will need a body restoration but everything is there with a pretty well documented history from Sweden.

I guess Anders will fill in with more details.

It's sad that we can't keep these kind of cars over here. The market is a fact, there are very few buyers over here that will pay what a car like this is worth.

And that is just what I have told the present owner, if he wants to sell it it has to be in the USA.


Jan

[COPO_Anders]

Here is an e-mail I sent to Kurt Sonen in 2002.



Since then I have learned some things:
The block being cast in January is normal.
When I took the paint off the frontpad I found that "T0528MO" was a restamp. But the partial VIN is not, so it is the original block.
The partial VIN on the trans looks strange from above. Needs to be checked thoroughly.
I didn´t know about all the June-built Camaros being stamped with 06A on the trimtag. I have been told that the body came from Fisher on June 20th and that the car was sent to lot on June 24. So the builddate on the rearend is ok.

[PeteLeathersac]

Cool info Anders!.

VIN 124379N661631

Being the real deal, the seller could benefit from the auction house posting more info!.
Could the weak info be on purpose...and part of a new auction trend for the real cars?.

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/hmmm.gif[/img]
~ Pete

[COPO_Anders]

Here are some pics. I sent the important ones to CRG last year.

Part of page 59 in what I believe is the first COPO Connection Source Book. On the top it says &quot;VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS&quot; &quot;DOCUMENTED 9561 CARS&quot;. It says &quot;BERGER AND L-72&quot; above these VIN´s


Swedish VIN-tag.


Partial VIN on upper part of cowl. The guy who owned the car before me never protected this partial VIN so I have driven the car in rain not knowing it would result in rusting the area.






Bodytag.


Partial VIN on engineblock.


BE-rearend.

[COPO_Anders]

N661631 body damage.

Remember, it´s been a year since I sold the car and since last summer since I last saw it. So I don´t know if anything has been done with it since then.
My intention was to patch the car up rather than to change all the sheetmetal. I had two reasons for this. First: if I made a mistake patching up a fender someone else could always change the whole fender in another restoration years later. Second: I wanted to retain as much of the original sheetmetal as possible.
I consider the car to be pretty solid but there is still rust in many places.
It seems to have been in a couple of fenderbenders over the years. The better part of the right rearfender was probably replaced before it left the USA in the seventies. By then it was painted yellow/green I have been told. Here in Sweden the wife of the first owner drove to far out in a crossing and was hit slightly on the left frontfender. It was straightened but not perfectly. The dash and surrounding area is of course rusty since the original VIN-tag is gone. The hood had hoodpins at one point, but the holes have been welded shut. Both frontfenders have rust issues behind the wheels. There is rust in the lower front area of the doorskins. The front of the roof has to be checked. Both rear wheelwells have been changed once, and there is rust in the front part of both fenders. It sounds like it needs a lot of work, but I still consider it a good project having the original engine and BE-rearend. With the car I also sold a set of five correctly dated XT-wheels and a correctly dated gooseneck radiator. I assume it goes with the car.

In the pics below taken around 1984 you can se the area on the left frontfender that was hit in the crossing. You can also see a rusthole in the frontfender behind the wheel and the rear wheelwell that had been changed.

[COPO_Anders]

If anyone here buy the car, just send me an e-mail and I´ll send you some pics that where taken in the 80´s.

[acelr8]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: COPO_Anders</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
If anyone here buy the car, just send me an e-mail and I´ll send you some pics that where taken in the 80´s. </div></div>
I would but your box is full. Car headed to MO.Jeff

[jannes_z-28]

Guess you bought it then?

Congrats!


I have some images of it too, send me a notice and I mail them to you.

Jan

[ZLP955]

Know this is an old thread, but the car has been listed for sale on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/301456798701 and a VIN search pulled up this thread.

[COPO_Anders]

I have been told that the NCRS historical documents shows that it was ordered by Kitson Chevrolet Eatontown, NJ. Not Malcolm Konner as was believed before.