Some of the most rare F-bodies that GM ever built were the 427 COPO cars that were created in direct defiance of General’s corporate-wide displacement mandate that called for nothing bigger than a 400-cube motor to be stuffed into nothing smaller than an Impala. The factory performance plan was one headed by Vince Piggins, and it was one of Chevy’s first.

If anything could ever be said about the original COPO Camaros, it’s that they were the members of the 1st-Gen family that defied the laws of F-car gravity in a way that no other production muscle car of the era, regular or limited, could have even dreamed of.

As opposed to the Transformers edition, quite a few more 45th-Anniversary 5th-Gens were produced for 2012, numbers totaling out to 8,283 Anniversary cars and 1,411 Transformers.

But as for our current 5th-Gen lineup, it seems as though there’s really nothing currently out that falls under the umbrella of “rare and obscure,” aside from the blown ZL1 that promised to take the GT500 head-to-head with Bowtie vengeance. If you believe, however that the 45th-Anniversary and Transformers edition Camaros were mere cute cosmetic packages, then you are still terribly wrong.

That’s because of all the Transformer 5th-Gens that were built for ’12, only 49 V6 manual coupes were produced while V6 auto production totaled 464, with V8 coupe production totaling 371 for manuals and 527 for autos. That brings the Transformer Camaro production to a sum of 1,411 for the production year.

As for the 45th-Anniversary cars, a total of 8,283 5th-Gens were built for last year. This substantially higher production number boils down to 269 V6 manuals, 1,942 6-shooter autos, only 66 manual V6 convertibles, 638 V6 auto convertibles, 1,525 V8 manual coupes, 2,216 V8 auto coupes, 524 V8 manual convertibles and 1,103 V8 auto convertibles.

Needless to say, it will be fascinating to see what will be considered a “collector’s item” even 10-15 years from now. The days of streetable COPO supercars may be gone, but for a new generation of Camaro fans the Transformer and 45th-Anniversary 5th-Gens may just prove to be the equivalent!