One of approximately 323 produced, this Monaco Orange 1969 Chevrolet COPO Chevelle has been well known to the Chevelle enthusiast community since the original owner, Roger Day, tracked it down to repurchase it in August 2009. The saga began on April 19, 1969, when Day—then an employee at Whitaker Cable in Kansas City, Missouri—spotted the Chevelle at nearby Bill Allen Chevrolet on his way to work and stopped in for a look. Unaware of the Chevelle’s special status as a factory 427 COPO car, Roger purchased it on the spot, trading in his 1966 Chevelle SS396 as partial payment. Built at the Leeds assembly plant in Kansas City, it was factory-equipped with the L72 427/425 HP big-block V-8 with heavy duty cooling, a column-shifted 400 Turbo Hydra-Matic 3-speed transmission, KQ-code 4.10:1 Positraction 12-bolt rear end, F41 Heavy Duty suspension, power brakes with front discs, Goodyear Polyglas tires on 14x7 SS 5-spoke wheels, special-order SS and COPO-only Monaco Orange paint and a Parchment bench-seat interior. As one of just 96 equipped with the 400 Turbo automatic, Roger’s new COPO Chevelle was rare indeed; even better, it had been specially prepared and modified by Mr. Chevrolet himself, Kansas City tuner and racer Dick Harrell, before being consigned to Bill Allen Chevrolet. As documented in the car’s original paperwork, the Harrell modifications included removing the AIR system components, modifying the distributor’s mechanical and vacuum advance settings, and installing a degreed harmonic balancer, a column- mounted Sun tachometer, special black hood stripes and hood locks. A Dick Harrell badge mounted on the trunk lid supplied the finishing touch. The Chevelle’s proud new owner began facing off against the local competition, but after two warranty-replacement engines and then meeting his future wife, Karen, on Memorial Day in 1970, Roger decided to trade the car in on a new 1970 Camaro RS coupe. That seemed to be the end of the Days’ COPO Chevelle saga, but reminiscing about their early days with the Chevelle eventually inspired them to determine the car’s whereabouts in the hope of reacquiring it. After several months of searching, on August 13, 2009, they confirmed that the car was in an Ottawa, Illinois storage facility; on August 13, Roger and Karen paid cash for the car on the spot, and the next day it was on a trailer headed for their home near Dallas, Texas, 40 years and four months after Roger had traded it for his new Camaro. In August 2010, Roger and Karen delivered the Chevelle, along with a treasure trove of NOS parts, to Premier Paint and Body in Buffalo, Missouri, for a concours-grade, nut-and-bolt, rotisserie restoration to the original factory specifications. In keeping with that objective, an OEM 427 CI 512 block was built to L72 specs using a GM steel crank, NOS rods, pistons, rings, rod bolts and bearings, and a Comp Cams solid lifter camshaft and valvetrain. The completed COPO Chevelle drew immediate acclaim when, in June 2011, the car was named Top 3 in the 1969 Stock class and awarded Peoples Choice at the ACES National Chevell-Abration in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, followed by another Top 3 at the ACES Regional in Olathe, Kansas, in September, and culminating in Concours Day 2 Gold at the November 2011 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals with a remarkable score of 994 out of a possible 1,000 points. Numerous awards followed in 2012, when the car was featured in the October issue of Super Chevy Magazine, named a finalist in both the Goodguys Lonestar Nationals Terrific 12 and Hemmings Muscle Car of the Year, and when it was named Chevelle Street Class Winner at the May Super Chevy event in Dallas. In 2013, the car won Outstanding in Class at the Dallas Autorama and Sponsors Pick at the Northern Ohio Chevelle Regional meet. Still presenting in show-stopping, as-original condition, this multiple award-winning 1969 COPO Chevelle with an extraordinary history is perfectly prepared for its next dedicated caretaker to share with an appreciative audience of muscle car enthusiasts across the nation.
