I spoke with Bob Wingate who used to be a high-performance salesman at Clippinger Chevrolet in California. He was the guy who actually ordered and sold my Special Order Paint 67Z (Hugger Orange). As I recall, Bob said he used to order these cars using the COPO process. He said a special order paint job cost something like an extra $12 way back in the day. At any rate, I seem to recall that these cars could be ordered in relatively small lots with unique paint colors - principally for use by a particular company for their fleet vehicles. When I talked to Bob he said my car was definitely a COPO car, but not in the sense that we think of COPO production cars today. (engine and performance pacakges vs. color) Interestingly enough, a couple of years ago Jon Mello found a Los Angeles production 67 SS396 for sale on on ebay that was originally painted the same color as my car. The paint code on the cowl trim tag for that car was O-O like mine, and the "unique" color lot code was L-243D (or something like that), while that same code on my car was L-243C - so that car was litereally the NEXT car painted after mine in 1967. I should have bought that car for the wife..... Its probably the case that Bob Wingate ordered up a few "high performance" Hugger Orange cars in 67. (Z, L78, etc...) He told me he used to order these uniqe high performance cars, and park them in the front corner of the lot to attract attention (and customers...). As he told the story, people would come in to the dealership trying to make a deal saying, " I saw one of these cars at X dealership in the same color," as part of their negotiating strategy. Of course, Bob knew that was absolutly not the case since few salepeople knew how to get cars "painted special" through the COPO process. Enevitably, the customers would be back - and pay the price Bob wanted for these very unique cars.
