Yesterday I had the luxury of spending the day with an old friend of mine. I brought my beater Hyundai to his shop to weld up SEVEN cracks in the frame. She's a fine example of what not to do while engineering an automobile. Well anyway my friend used to be a mechanic for Baldwin Motion back in the glory days and we had some really cool conversation that I figure I would share with you. If you don't want to listen to my rambling just go to the last paragraph.

My friend told me he was selling his Motion Vega Wagon (which by the way is unbelieveably cool) and he had a guy from New Jersey come by his house to check it out. The guy was asking if he had any documentation on the car and Eric (my friend) looked at him like he was crazy. I guess the fact that he worked at Motion Performance and has owned this thing close to forever, the last thing he cared about was paperwork. So he brought the guy up to the attic of his house and dug out stuff he saved from working at Motion and the guy went bananas like he was in a museum. Taking pictures of stuff like one of Eric's old Motion time cards from 1976 and old Motion Books that had pictures of his car in it. From there he starting telling me about his days working at Motion. He talked about how he regretted selling his old L89 Camaro and his buddy Lenny who sold his 1967 Z/28 in the 80's for $12,500. He even mentioned working on one of the two ZL1 Corvettes at Motion . I didn't believe it at first but what stuck in my head was he said a carpenter bought it for his daughter to drive. Then I found this link this morning (http://www.corvettes-for-sale.com/spots/jan00/spot.htm) and in the article it says a guy named Wayne Walker bought the car from a cabinet maker for $6000. I couldn't believe it. I've known this guy since I was 18 and here is giving me a history lesson! He just kept spitting out stuff like this for like 4 hours. It was better than sitting down and reading a good book.

Now to the main topic. Eric has what he believes to be one of 50 COPO Novas ordered by Fred Gibb in 1968. The car is white with a 396/375, TH400, 12 Bolt, column shift, no emblems and dog dish hubcaps. He's looking to get paperwork to verify the car is what he thinks it is. He spoke to somebody who told him to write to Detroit but he doesn't know who? Has anybody been down this route and can provide some direction?

Joe

From the Yenko site:

http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/125880/an/0/page/0/gonew/1#UNREAD

Kim_Howie
addict


Re: Gibb Nova [Re: Z28DZ]
#125884 - 03/01/05 10:16 PM Edit




The Gibb Nova's were blue ,green ,red and turq. No white cars. All had bucket seats and all were floor shift.Find out the VIN# and the code on the engine and trans. Kim Howie

Post Extras:

the 1968 COPO 396/375 TH400 Novas were SS Novas so would have SS hood, emblems etc

Joe69RS,What years did your friend work at Motion Performance? By the way I have 4 68 Nova SS 4spd cars,3 396,1 L48 that had a BB transplant when new that Joel Rosen gave me a maybe on after I sent the $1500.00 in to him...Your friends call sounds like a 68 Nova SS L34 396/350hp auto,very rare only 49 made out of 234 which included the L34 4spds.My three were L78's...Dose the car still have the 3 spoke SS wheel,SS Emblem on Dash on passenger side,SuperSport on lower front fenders behind front wheels,foil tape 396 ID in front markers? Build sheet should be in car if interior has never been out...Good Luck,Dan

Hey Dan,

Eric worked at Motion in the 70's into the 80's till he opened his own performance shop. I don't know the exact years. He described the car to me as a plain jane Nova with no SS badges. When he gets back from bike week I am going to go and take pictures and get more specific information.

Joe

Super Chevy just did a great article on those 50 COPOs listing all 50 VIN #s right from Freg Gibbs book. Here is the page that lists all 50 VINs
http://thehoovers.com/liam/camaro/copo_novas.jpg

Bill

Joe, do you have a pic of the motion vega wagon?

Calpantera:

The sYc just updated the '68 Gibb COPO (http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=102522&page=0&vc=1#Post102522) list over at the Supercar Registry, which now reflects ALL 50 numbers (with Helen Gibb's permission!), as well as sequence number and color.

Nah, I don't have a picture of the Vega. I'll get one though. He drives the car he doesn't let it sit in a garage. He was going to take it to a show this past weekend but it ended up raining.

I ran the VIN for the Nova against the list Calpantera sent me and the car is not one of 50 Gibb cars. I have the the VIN and Trim Tag information at home that I'll post on Yenko.net. Hopefully somebody could decifer something special in the Trim Tag. I saw the car and it's very clean. This car was without a doubt never restored. If somebody took the time to put a big block in it this car they sure went out of their way to make it look like an original big block car. I'm not sure if the short block is original but Eric told me somebody put LS6 heads and intake on the motor. Whatever it is, it's a real cool super stock car.

Great story. I remember being at the NY Auto Show at the Colaseum and talking with a Motion sales person standing next to a Vega Wagon. He said they preferred modding the wagons because they were more stable at high speeds than the coupes!