From the late 1960’s forward, if you were a gearhead, speed fanatic and you were searching for more muscle in your muscle car, and you were a Chevy disciple, you made a visit to either Nickey Chevrolet in Chicago or you headed east to Yenko Chevrolet in Canonsburg, PA. Once you reached your dealer of choice, you could flip through the catalog and pick your parts and levels of performance you wished to reach. Both dealerships took good advantage of the COPO options from factory. COPO was originally intended for fleet vehicle purchases like taxis or service trucks, but with clever tweaking, the dealership could get some wild combinations of big block motors and performance parts to skirt around the limitations Chevy thought they had placed on their production cars.
Nickey Chevrolet had the Bill Thomas “Stage” packages that a seeker of speed to choose from. Stage I was listed as “mild performance” and included headers, and engine dress up kit and special paint, striping and wheels, amongst a few other performance goodies. Stage I added $389 onto your new 1968 Camaro. Stage II was “medium” performance, included all of Stage I goodies and added a high performance racing camshaft, Hurst Shifter, traction kit and heavy duty clutch. This package was an additional $689 to your ‘68. Stage III was no holds barred for “superfast competition”. You got all of the Stage I & II components with a beefier camshaft, M&H Racemaster tires on the rear, competition ring and pinion gears and a dual carb intake and air cleaners. All this ground ripping performance added $1089 to your new 1968 Camaro.
A few miles to the east in Pennsylvania, Don Yenko was doing his own thing with the COPO options. First with Corvairs, then Camaros, Vegas and Novas. This set includes the Nova Deuce in Fathom Blue, which Yenko produced in 1970. Yenko used the 350 C.I. smalll block that Chevy used in the Camaro Z-28 and LT1 Corvette, producing 360 horse power. there were 175 Yenko Deuce Novas built, with 11 cars confirmed as totaled and lost. Yenko never had the cars approved for the NHRA stock class and had to race under the higher performance Modified Production class where they were not on the same level as much stronger cars in that class. The YDN was equipped with custom body stripes, custom interior, Hurst shifter (auto or manual) a Dixco hood tachometer and custom wheels.
We’ll take as look at this latest Auto World set and let our imagination take us to a place where we can race from Chicago to Canonsburg with our Nickey Camaro Stage III and Yenko Nova Deuce from one dealership to the next.
Here’s everything that comes with the set. Track, controllers, power pack, cars and accessories.
Here is the recommended layout and some optional layout designs that can be made from the track in this set.
This set also comes with enough straight sections to produce a short drag strip so these classics can stretch their legs. The finish line also has a trip lever to display a flag over the lane showing the winner.
Auto World provides color coded controllers that match the cars.
The set includes some cardboard cutouts of the Yenko and Nickey dealerships and billboards of the cars you could purchase there.
Here are some shots of the layout.
So I’ve kept you on the hook long enough. Let’s get a closer look at the cars in this set. They are the Auto World Thunderjet Ultra G chassis and have some of the very detailed paint work that Auto World is so well known for.
1968 Chevrolet Camaro – Nickey Stage III – Matador Red/White
1970 Chevrolet Nova – Yenko Nova Deuce – Fathom Blue/White
Now for a little track action!
Auto World once again has a great pair of cars and a fun set to let ‘em roll and rip on. The combination of a road course and a short drag strip make this twice the fun and the Nickey and Yenko tributes from a great age of muscle is the perfect touch for fun in the floor on a hot summer’s night. Look for this set to hit the stores in late June of 2021.