1970 Yenko Deuce. Photos by John Hollansworth, Jr., courtesy Mecum Auctions.
Most people mark 1972 as the death of the (first) muscle car era, but if insurance companies had their way, it would have ended years earlier. By 1970, those shopping for Yenko-tuned Chevrolets were already finding it difficult to get insurance, prompting performance guru Don Yenko to revamp his product offerings. Instead of shoehorning more big-block V-8s into Chevy Novas, Yenko rationalized that the new, high-performance LT-1 V-8 would deliver solid performance yet fly below the radar of insurance companies. The 1970 Yenko Deuce was born, and on January 22, 2016, one of 21 four-speed examples in Fathom Blue will cross the auction block in Kissimmee, Florida.
Don Yenko was a man who knew how to work the GM system. Chevy’s solid lifter LT-1 small block, which produced 360 horsepower in the Camaro Z/28 and 370 hp in the Corvette, wasn’t listed as an option for the Nova, which came instead with the Turbo-Fire V-8, producing 250-300 hp. Turning to the Central Office Production Order system, typically used for fleet sales, Yenko ordered up a batch of base model Chevy Novas equipped with the 360 horsepower LT-1 V-8, mated to either a Muncie M21 four-speed manual transmission with Hurst shifter or a TH400 automatic.
The 1970 Yenko Deuce Novas were also built with the COPO 9373 Sports Car Conversion package, which included a modified F41 suspension with front and rear anti-roll bars and stiffer shocks; a 12-bolt Positraction rear with 4.10:1 gearing; heavy-duty cooling; five-leaf rear springs; and E70-14 tires. As base models, the cars came with rubber floor mats, bench seats and steel wheels with poverty hubcaps, though Yenko would swap these out for SS wheels prior to customer delivery. Yenko also added a wraparound vinyl graphics, “Deuce” hood lettering, “LT-1” hood stripes, Yenko badges and a hood-mounted Dixco tachometer.
Yenko referred to the Deuce, named in honor of the car’s Chevy II origins, as a “mini muscle car.” Given the Nova’s relatively light weight, performance was impressive, even by contemporary standards. A review of the Yenko Deuce in the March 2011 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines shows a 0-60 MPH time of 5.5 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 12.84 seconds at 108 MPH. To be fair, this was for a similar car with 4.56 rear gearing, but even in stock form the Yenko Deuce Novas reportedly run in the low 13s.
Yenko’s ruse worked (at least in the short term), and few insurance companies initially understood that the small block 350 in the Yenko Deuce was different from the small block 350 in Aunt Edna’s Nova. Buyers snapped up 175 Yenko Deuces in the car’s sole production year, including 122 with the four-speed and 53 with the automatic.
The restored Yenko Deuce to be offered in Florida comes from the Wayne Schmeekle Collection, and was delivered new through Dale Chevrolet in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Mecum predicts a selling price between $175,000 and $220,000 when the Nova crosses the block on January 22. For more information, visit Mecum.com.
from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1ZByg2r
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