![]() With the Ranchero still selling well, Chevy brought back the El Camino on the proven Chevelle platform. It could have been the new flamboyant wings of full-sized Chevys or perhaps the Ranchero's hefty stake in the market, but after just 2 years and 36,409 El Caminos produced, Chevy dropped the ax on the model. The El Camino was built on a modified Brookwood station wagon platform. GM flirted with coupe-type trucks such as the Chevrolet Cameo Carrier and the GMC Suburban Carrier in 1955, but they went all-in with the El Camino for the 1959 model year. The El Camino was a direct challenge Ford's Ranchero, a utility coupe dominating a previously untapped market. Is it a truck, or is it a car? We'll try to answer that question in this post. It wasn't long before real pickups got sufficiently comfortable to make cartrucks less relevant.In the history of the automotive world, no car has evoked the existential stoicism of the Chevy El Camino. This generation of El Camino was built through 1977, after which the smaller and more angular G-body El Camino carried on until the end.Įssentially a C10 with the comfort of a Monte Carlo. The bandanna gas cap tells us that this Elco didn't get much tender loving care during its final months on the road. My guess is that this cartruck's engine compartment has hosted at least a few engines during its life. Is this that original 350? I didn't feel like getting filthy scraping away ancient schmutz to peek at the block casting numbers to find out. The base engine for the 1973 El Camino was the 307-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) small-block, with just 115 horses and a reputation as one of the least desirable Chevy small-blocks ever made. It appears that the original engine was a 350-cubic-inch (5.7-liter) small-block V8, an optional plant rated at 175 horsepower. In fact, this El Camino may have just the fender from a Classic - lots of mix-and-match parts swappage has taken place here. The El Camino Classic was the truck version of the Malibu (which was an upscale Chevelle trim level at the time but later shoved the Chevelle name aside), with Malibu-style trim and interior bits. The Chevelle got bigger and cushier for the 1973 model year (just in time to be blindsided by certain geopolitical events that gave small-car sales a huge boost), and so the pickup-ized Chevelle also grew larger. Yes, there were decades of business in the front/party in the back for this Elco, but now it's completely used up. Here's a very rough but still identifiable '73, found in a Denver-area car graveyard. ![]() I find plenty of discarded Rancheros during my quest for junkyard history lessons, but the El Camino is another story. GM jumped in with the new El Camino for 1959, and- after a dalliance with a Corvair-based cartruck for a few years- sold Chevelle-based El Caminos (and, eventually, their GMC Sprint and Caballero siblings) all the way through 1987. After noting the strong sales of Ford and Mercury coupe utilities (which came to be known as utes) in Australia, Ford introduced the station-wagon-chassis-based Ranchero to North Americans for the 1957 model year. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |