Chevrolet COPO Camaro-Inspired Drag Commodore Shows a Future That Could Have Been
It’s been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Australia’s Darren Parker could not have flattered Chevrolet any more with the passion behind his COPO-inspired Holden Commodore.
For Darren, the racing and automotive community influence started just over thirty years ago.
“I got into drag racing when I went to the Australian Nationals at Calder Park (Melbourne) in 1992 with some of my workmates,” said Darren. “I fell in love with the Pro Stock and Super Stock cars that looked like the cars we saw on the street every day. The fuel dragsters and funny cars were cool, but I really liked the fast sedans.”
Win the ultimate burnout vehicle / a pretty cool Aussie Ute! Click here for details to win Sick the Magazine’s Ute!
At the age of 21, Darren got his start with a 1992 VP SS Holden Commodore that initially provided daily transportation, but it didn’t take long before Darren added the racing part to the equation.
“I went to an off-street meeting with the car and fried the factory clutch in it on the first night,” he said. “The next day I bought a new clutch, and fitted it myself, and got hooked on the race, fix, race cycle.”
Eventually, the VP Commodore got too loud and rowdy for the street, and Darren said it was attracting too much attention from the police.
“So, I took it off the road and had a roll cage, 4-link and 31-inch tires fitted by a local chassis builder,” he said.
The car became a reasonably successful 9.9-second bracket car, winning multiple races, and earning runner up in the Australian Super Sedan championship twice.
After that success, Darren wheeled a Jerry Haas-built Pro Stock Pontiac GXP to an Australian championship in 2013, as well as several records. But in 2017, his marriage broke down, and he sold off everything with no intention of racing again. But it didn’t take long for him to change his mind.
“By 2018, the itch had returned and built myself an 11.5-second ‘street car’ that I also raced on Street Machine magazines ‘Drag Challenge’ (our version of Sick Week),” said Darren. “I won the DYO (dial-your-own) class with a 0.008 second variation in my submitted dial in over the whole week.”
This got the racing fire flared in his system again, but Darren needed a different path.
“I wanted to go down the street car path, but I didn’t want to risk modifying the car to the point I had issues with the police again, or reliability where I couldn’t get the kids to and from school each day,” he said. “So, I started looking around for a project. At this time, I was also closely following the Factory Stock Showdown class in the NHRA, and loved the factory body, small tires and blown EFI engines running in the low 8-second / high 7-second range, so I decided that I would build a car using the COPO (Central Office Production Order) Camaro as inspiration, as if Holden built their own drag racing car from the factory.”
Holden had stopped manufacturing of Commodores in Australia in 2017, but Darren didn’t let that deter him from searching out the perfect candidate for his vision.
“I started looking online for a rolling shell, and found the white car you see today,” he said.
“It had been in a small accident that damaged the front bumper bar, engine and k-frame, but the rest of the chassis was complete. The insurance company had written it off, meaning it could never be registered in Australia again. However, it was perfect for a race car. I bought the rolling shell for the cost of the hanging panels.”
The 2015 V6 VF Commodore was a basic roller, and to get his start, Darren bought the COPO Camaro build book. He used Chevrolet’s factory hot rod as a reference for part selection and building the car.
The car was sent to Craig Burns and his family at SCF in Sydney to build the chassis and get it ready. The car got a host of upgrades, including a full cage, a fabricated 9-inch rear housing with 40 spline Mark Williams axles, 4-link rear suspension and Menscer rear shocks.
For power, John Lloyd at Street Quick Performance in Perth was contacted to put an engine together. An aluminum LSR block was chosen as a lighter starting point versus an iron block, and John filled it with a Callies crankshaft, Oliver steel connecting rods, and a Comp Cams solid roller camshaft.
The motor wears a pair of ‘off the shelf’ Mast cylinder heads, with titanium intake and Inconel exhaust valves. A Magnuson COPO Mag Drag 2650 supercharger, sourced from Todd at Patterson Elite in Kansas, tops off the package, which checks in at 412 cubic inches.
The engine is backed by an ATI Turbo 400 3-speed transmission, also sourced from Patterson, that features different than stock ratios, and a Coan aluminum bolt-together converter. A QA1 carbon fiber driveshaft send the power to a Dewco 9.5-inch aluminum center section in the rear end.
A Holley Dominator EFI system oversees it all, with a few additional sensors to monitor shock travel and transmission pressures, as well as the normal drag race sensors, according to Darren. The car runs on E-85 fuel, sourced with an Aeromotive 5 gallon-per-minute pump.
“At the moment, I am running it our Top Sportsman class (a dial-your-own bracket for 8.5-second maximum ET enclosed body cars),” Darren said. “Unfortunately, there is no Group 2 Super Stock (same as NHRA Comp Eliminator) class for the car. Maybe one day, if they bring the class in, I would look at competing, but I think that would then need a 350 cubic inch motor from the USA to be competitive and not a low revving, low maintenance engine like I have now.”
He has some future upgrades planned, including lightening the car up a bit, and adding a few more pounds of boost to the supercharger, to reach his goal of a 7-second pass.
“I have run an 8.13 at 171 mph with a soft 1.23 60 foot time,” said Darren. “Now that I am close to the 7-second pass, I really want to reach that new goal!”
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Darren Parker.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com