What is a COPO Camaro?
COPO stands for Central Office Production Order. This is the process used by Chevrolet (and other divisions of GM) for internal orders for limited production of non-standard cars. The Pace Car Camaros that actually paced the Indy 500 (because of modifications needed to the cars to meet the special requirements of reliability and safety for race duty) were ordered via the COPO process. The COPO process was also used to build special show cars, and sometimes, for special competition-oriented cars. However, the COPO process was used more often for mundane special fleet orders and doesn’t necessarily indicate a high-performance vehicle. Most commonly known COPO cars were built during the 1st generation. The one well known 2nd gen COPO is COPO 9796, the tall, 3 piece rear spoiler for 1970 and early 1971 Camaros.
