‘57 CHEVY: BLACK WIDOW REDUX

Posted on January 14, 2020January 14, 2020 by MartynL

Ronnie Staples channeled Chevrolet’s Vince Piggins and SEDCO to come up with a modern, resto-modded version of the legendary Black Widow ’57 Chevy. It’s a true Road Warrior! The SEDCO vanity license plate on Ronnie Staples’ ultra-slick ’57 Chevy 150 two-door could easily go unnoticed unless you’re a student of 1950s Chevrolet factory racing programs. SEDCO, Southern Engineering and Development Company, was home to Chevrolet’s backdoor NASCAR racing efforts in 1957. It was hidden in plain sight, ...

COPO CAMARO: HERITAGE & HORSEPOWER!

Posted on July 28, 2019 by MartynL

Before there was a COPO ZL1 Camaro and later an RPO ZL1 Corvette in 1969, Duntov’s aluminum Mark IV program had already generated engines for Can-Am racing. The third ZL1 Camaro built was yellow and ordered by Berger Chevrolet. COPO CAMARO: HERITAGE & HORSEPOWER! Although Duntov championed aluminum heads and lightweight engines for the Corvette, the first “production” use of the ZL1 was in the 1969 COPO (9560) Camaro, not the Corvette. Credit for the ZL1 Camaro goes to Vince Piggins, worki...

MARK II – CHEVY’S MYSTERIOUS 427!

Posted on January 4, 2019 by MartynL

The real 427 Mystery Motor, unlike the Z11, was not available in a car or to the public. You had to have serious NASCAR cred to get one of the 20 built. In the 1960s, Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen always seemed to be one step ahead of GM Chairman Fred Donner’s missives disallowing factory involvement in racing. While running Pontiac, Knudsen had supported the Super-Duty Group that, after he left, managed to get 421 Catalina Lightweights to drag racers before the axe fell. In 1961 he moved on to Chevro...

’69 COPO 9567 CAMARO: ONE OF NONE!

Posted on August 13, 2018 by MartynL

The rarest of all COPO Camaros, powered by an all-aluminum 427, could’ve been a street screamer. I drove the only one built at GM’s Milford Proving Ground, below, in 1969 and never saw it again. Chevrolet had a very effective “backdoor” approach to insuring its performance image. The process was called COPO (Central Office Production Order) and it essentially allowed for the building of non-standard cars. Dating back to the late-1940s, it was initiated to accept low-volume orders from fleet ope...

OPTION Z28: CHEVY BUILDS A BOY RACER!

Posted on November 8, 2017November 8, 2017 by MartynL

This is the first Z28 produced and one of the first 16 Z28 Camaros that Chevrolet built specifically to beat Mustangs in Trans-Am road racing. It was Vince Piggins, Chevrolet Product Promotions Manager and keeper of its revolving “backdoor”, who conceived the Z28 Camaro to battle Mustang on the Trans-Am circuit. Once approved by Pete Estes, Chevrolet General Manager and GM Vice-President, he was given the green light to prototype a true four-place sports coupe. Estes had a rich performance car ...