Yenko Deuces - 1969 & 1970 Yenko Novas

The Yenko Deuce's body stripes... 

   

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The Yenko Deuce's body stripes make it an all-time super sharp Nova that can't be missed or mistaken.

Many enthusiasts today have wondered why sales of all these special Chevys weren't higher. The truth is that many of us didn't know of their availability. Somehow magazine ads and word of mouth didn't reach everyone. Simple as that. As a direct result, many performance enthusiasts simply built their own. Almost all of us were out of the beaten path of magazine editors and savvy freelance contributors. We just built our Chevys and raced them at the dragstrip and elsewhere. None of this made for exciting magazine reading, per se. Guys bought wrecked, stripped, or even six-cylinder Novas, then built them up. For every Yenko Nova there were probably at least 250 homebuilt, nondescript sleepers in towns all across America.

We took this black and white... 

   

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We took this black and white photo of J&W Nova's Yenko Deuce Forest green four-speed car on June 1, 1988. This is how an original interior looked. Note the gauge trio in the dash center. They were add-ons.

According to research compiled at Ed Cunneen's COPO Connection, Chevrolet brass assigned Yenko its COPO number 9010 for the Camaro Z28/Corvette LT1 engine and COPO number 9737 for its little-known Sports Car Conversion Package. The latter included similar chassis components that Yenko's '69 SC 427 Camaro received: F40 heavy-duty suspension with a 13/16-inch-diameter front antiroll bar and a slightly smaller rear antiroll bar, as well as larger valving shock absorbers and stouter springs.

Yenko and his crew were geniuses at subtle exterior and interior styling. No bold "SS" stripes for his cars. He instead went with a distinctive vinyl die-cut arrangement. All 175 Deuces had a domed tachometer on the driver-side hood and tasteful Magnum 500 wheels. Other Yenko Deuce base equipment included an AM radio, black standard bench seat, black rubber floor covering, power front disc brakes (drum brakes aft), and a special interior lighting group. On the interior was "Deuce" lettering on the upper middle of the door panels.

All Yenko Deuces had a standard... 

   

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All Yenko Deuces had a standard black bench seat interior with slightly updated door panels, as shown.

For optional equipment, you could order just about anything you wanted that was dealer-available. Yenko readily offered a nice wheel update-four 14x7 Atlas aluminum wheels with a Yenko decal on each center cap. The spare tire was the car's original painted steel wheel. The tire size was E70x14. Cunneen's research indicates that both raised white lettered or whitewall tires were available.

In all, 173 of the 175 COPO LT1 350 Novas ordered went directly to Yenko Chevrolet. The remaining two were said to have been shipped to Canada. 122 of the 175 were four-speeds. The other 53 were TH400 automatics.

Long live the '70 Yenko 350 Deuce and the '69 Yenko 427 Super Nova.

The Yenko Deuce engine is...        read full caption The Yenko Deuce engine is identical to the 370hp Corvette LT1 350 and the 360hp Z28 350. Its rating is 360 hp, like the Camaro. The 10hp drop was always said to be from a more restive exhaust system. The air cleaner looks to be the same as the one on the '70 L78 375hp 396 (402) Camaro.

If there ever was an '08 edition...        read full caption If there ever was an '08 edition Nova you could throw into the COPO, Yenko Deuce, or just plain "awesome" category, it's definitely Promax's "Vennom." It is all heavy-duty fiberglass and really slick. You can buy one less engine and trans today. FYI: A '70 Vennom Nova is near completion.

Here's an '08 Vennom tube...        read full caption Here's an '08 Vennom tube frame, suspension, rear end, and optional rubber. Nothing unibody here! The car's base price is $21,290, FOB Tennessee. Visit www.vennom.com for complete details.