ZL1 Urban Legend?

[Donald M.]

This may or may not have been discussed in the past, so here goes. Were there more than two factory equipped ZL1 cars built in 1969? I ask this for two reasons: 1.) A friend of mine has what he puports to be a genuine ZL1 in his rather vast collection. I have seen and touched the car altough I did not get any numbers off it and 2.) There is a copy of an article from some car magazine displayed with the car stating that there were FIVE ZL1 cars made, two were sold to the public (the ones we know about) and three were purchased either by Corvette engineers or company VIPs and subsequently sold, wrecked, etc. This all sounds like urban legend, is it?

[Dick W.]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

While there has been rumors since 1969 that there were more than 2 ZL-1's built, Chevrolet's official productions numbers show only two. Several of us have had the opportunity to view what is possibly a third car, equipped with an automatic transmission. One owner with what appears to be very good paper work. Owner states that the original engine is stored in his garage. Another frequent poster to this site knows the car from day one and verifies the owners claims. He has no reason to try to defraud anyone with this car as it is not for sale. Several of us believe that it is a real car.

[Edward M.]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

Lets see...the white coupe in Washington state, the yellow coupe in Florida, the orange convertible in Pennsylvania, the blue convertible in Florida, the blue coupe in Missoui.

That is more than 2 cars. How many are real?

Any one of these the car that you touched?

[Dick W.]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

Ed, I have seen the paperwork that was photocopied when the yellow car was unloaded from the train in 1969 (see article in the Restorer) I followed the restoration of that car in the late 70's or the early 80's. The car in Pennsylvania was viewed by several of us at the Cincy regional. I had seen the paperwork about 10-12 years ago.

[Charles M.]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

Were there some ZL1 Camaros?

[GL Anderson]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

There were 69 ZL1 1969 Camaros. Chevrolet had a hard time selling them to the dealers. Joe Pike called and wanted us to take 2, 1 with an automatic and 1 4 speed. I called everybody I knew to try to sell them before making the commitment to take them and couldn't find a buyer so had to decline. As with Corvettes there seems to be some confusion as to how many were produced. The official number is 69, however it seems that 1 has surfaced in Canada that appears to be genuine.

[John H.]

Re: ZL1 Urban Legend?

Yes, we built two of them at Norwood in December, 1968, and sixty-seven more of them between February and May of 1969; 47 4-speeds and 22 THM-400's.