The first Chevrolet COPO Camaro drag cars meet the world (Video)

It was almost a year ago that General Motors introduced the new COPO Camaro drag car concept at the 2011 SEMA Show but as we hit the peak of the summer drag racing season for 2012 – GM has built and sent out the first production examples of the modern COPO Camaro.

The first 2012 Chevrolet COPO Camaro drag cars sent out bear the serial numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9 with 2012 COPO Camaro #7 shown in the video below. The video really doesn’t have much going on but this video offers the first sound clip of a production COPO Camaro – even if it is only just sitting and edging forward at idle.

There is no denying that even at idle... the COPO Camaro sounds pretty awesome. I bet that it really sounds incredible at wide open throttle as it rockets away from the starting line. There is no word whether the COPO Camaro shown is a naturally aspirated 427 or if it is one of the blown small blocks but if I had to guess, the lack of blower noises leads me to believe that it is the big NA V8.

The 2012 Chevrolet COPO Camaro is built for track use only (no road use is ensured by the lack of a proper vehicle identification number) and the buyer can pick from one of two engines – a naturally aspirated 427 cubic inch big block or a supercharged 327 cubic inch small block. Those buyers who opt for the smaller blown motor can pick from either a 2.9 liter or 4.0 liter twin screw supercharger with varying levels of output…although all of these engines are massively powerful.

The fact that owners have a choice of three different engine configurations makes the 2012 COPO Camaro unique from the cross town rivals that are also built strictly for drag racing purposes. The Dodge Challenger V10 Drag Pak comes only with the naturally aspirated 512 cubic inch V10 borrowed from the Dodge Viper while the Ford Mustang Cobra Jet packs two engines – one being a high performance version of the naturally aspirated 5.0L V8 from the Mustang GT and the second is the modern 5.0 topped by a Ford Racing/Whipple 2.9L supercharger.

Official track times have not been announced by General Motors but to compete with the Ford Mustang Cobra Jet from Ford Racing and the Dodge Challenger V10 Drag Pak from Mopar, I would expect to see these turnkey race cars running in the 9 and 10 second range. Like those other American non street legal muscle cars, the COPO Camaro will be best used in stock form in the NHRA Stock and Super Stock classes around the US. Also like the Cobra Jet and the V10 Challenger, the COPO Camaro will be offered in very low numbers with just 69 examples built – paying homage to the original COPO Camaro in 1969.