GM’s most exclusive car is the stuff of hot-rod dreams

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Published Jun 9, 2017

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Southfield - Living out your childhood dreams doesn’t come cheap. Just

ask Kevin Mitchell. When he was in sixth grade, his parents got him a set of

wrenches, as a high-schooler, he rebuilt a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS that he

raced around the back streets of Danville,

Illinois.

Now 54, the owner of an electrical contracting

business, Mitchell has built up a collection of cars that includes five

Corvettes, a Lamborghini Diablo, and several Camaros. And while he isn't afraid

to get under the hood, he's more interested in driving them.

So when he got an April fool’s Day email saying he was one

of 69 people randomly chosen in a lottery of more than 3 000 for a chance to

buy a special COPO-edition Camaro, he thought to email Curt Collins, who runs

Chevy’s high-performance car program, before getting too excited.

Read also:  SA's 10 best selling cars of 2016 

“I asked him if it was a joke,” Mitchell said. It wasn’t. “I

couldn’t believe I got one.”

The COPO Camaro is the most exclusive car General Motors. Sells,

a fact even a well-versed gear head could be forgiven for not knowing. These

drag racers are hand-built in small numbers for track use only, and no cajoling

can get a buyer through the random lottery.

They’re marketed to the most diehard Chevy fans, the kind who

wants to race one, run it on a performance track, or add it to a

collection of shiny toys. Ford sells a similar package, the Mustang Cobra

Jet, albeit with less fanfare, and Dodge sells a version of its Challenger

muscle car with Drag Pak extra equipment for the race-minded buyer.

Ford has an outside firm turn its Mustang bodies into race

cars, and the Cobra Jet isn't built every year; when it is, it comes in batches

of 50 with each car selling for just under $100 000 and not by lottery said

spokesman Matt Leaver.

Chevy has managed to gin up more enthusiasm for its COPOs

than other such programs have for their cars by holding

its lottery, playing up the cars’ 1969 heritage and making the final

sale an event for buyers, said Peter DeLorenzo, whose website Autoextremist.com

covers both the industry and racing.

Each car takes 10 days to build; a regular Camaro rolls

off the assembly line after maybe 20 hours of work. Each COPO is numbered, like

an art print or a special-edition bottle of high-end bourbon; buyers of such

rarities like to know that what they’re getting is special. Each goes for at

least $110 000, and much more at auction.

Of GM’s priciest cars, only a fully loaded Corvette Z06

costs nearly as much. No Cadillac comes close. “Few people get out of here for

much less than $130,000, and some spend as much as $200 000 on

options,” Collins said.

Mitchell, about $125 000 later, was headed to the

tiny plant north of Detroit where they're built with his son Tyler and a

trailer [the cars aren’t street legal] to haul home COPO No. 47, of 69.

From out front, the COPO plant, in its small strip of office

buildings in suburban Oxford,

Michigan, looked less like an

auto plant than someplace geeks might go to find rare computer parts. The only

giveaway was a handful of still-unpainted steel Camaro body shells lined

up outside the only parts that come from the Camaro plant an hour away in Lansing.

But the scene inside recalled one from “Grease”: cars on

lifts, classic rock playing as 20 mechanics and craftsmen banged away and

welded the cars together.

The COPO story goes back to 1969, when a few crafty Chevy

dealers figured out they could custom-order some Camaros with Corvette engines

from GM’s central office.

Each special production order was called a Central Office

Production Order, or COPO. GM shut down the program after just a few years but

revived it in 2012.

The cars have been collectors’ items ever since. The company

sold COPO No. 1 at Barrett Jackson’s exclusive car auctions in 2014 for $700 000

and gave the proceeds to different charities.

The next year, car No. 1 for the 2015 model year went for

$300 000. Since the cars aren't street legal, they’re sought after by

collectors who rarely even start them up and by amateur race car

drivers.

“A lot of the amateur drive guys buy these cars so they

don't have to build a race car and be concerned with safety,” DeLorenzo

said. “These buyers want to spend more time running the cars than working on

them.”

That’s Mitchell’s plan. He started racing a 1969 Camaro last

year but aspired to race in the National Hot Rod Association’s amateur

drag events. He plans to start with an Independent Hot Rod Association race in Morocco, Illinois.

If he shows he’s a safe and skilled-enough driver, he can get his racing

license and head to the NHRA.

COPO drivers need skill. Depending on the engine they

choose, they can kick with 410 horsepower and up to 580. Unlike a common

Camaro, the COPO has special racing seats, with a harness and a steel roll

cage inside for extra protection in case of a crash.

“There is nothing on the car like you get on a stock

Camaro,” Collins said.

The car is actually engineered to race in NHRA races,

Collins said it’s all about going fast in a straight line. There’s no airbag,

no power steering, no power brakes, no anti-lock braking system. The fuel tank

is just six gallons, since it’s used only for racing or track time. If you

want, you can order a parachute to give the car some drag and slow it down

after crossing the finish line.

Mitchell opted for one. Inside the plant, as he circled

his new red-and-black drag racer for an inspection, he checked out the

parachute in the trunk. Then he went to climb into the driver's seat and

it quite literally was a climb.

The roll bars swung through the doorway; he had to slip over

them to get in. He’s not quite as lean as he was as a

track-running, Camaro-racing teenager; back then, he might have had an

easier time.

His son snapped photos of the car as he squirmed

over the bars. “Doesn’t anyone take a picture of this,” he said.

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