3. COPO Camaro
In the late ’60s, Can-Am was a popular racing series featuring prototype class cars with V8 engines. Chevrolet wanted to purpose-build a power plant for this championship, so they produced an all-aluminum 427 big block called ZL-1 in 1969. It was a high revving, 7.0-liter V8 with around 550 HP in mild tune. Chevrolet produced around 200 of those engines. While most of them went to Can-Am racing teams, they installed 69 of those ZL-1 in C.O.P.O Camaros, selling them to drag racing teams.
And even though the Camaro ZL-1 looked the same as the regular 1969 Camaro on the outside, it was so fast; it was barely street legal. Interestingly, the official 1969 Chevrolet literature doesn’t mention the ZL-1 option for the Camaro. But if you were a successful drag racer or a dealer, you knew about this expensive option. That’s why Chevy built only 69 Camaro ZL-1s.