Party in the front, even bigger party in the back.
Photography courtesy Mecum
What if, Chevrolet brass said, we capitalize on the pony car wars and expand the Camaro lineup with a small pickup? We’d one-up the competition from Ford and become rich beyond our wildest dreams.
Okay, not really.
The El Camaro’s roots don’t quite stretch back to the days of Mark Donohue and Parnelli Jones. It never sat in paddock at Bridgehampton or Riverside.
“I found the car as a project car in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, two years ago,” Jim Hedges tells us. “I brought the car back to Ohio, where we tore the car down to just a bare shell.”
Central Garage of Galion, Ohio, handled much of the mechanical work, installing the QA1 suspension, four-wheel discs and LSA engine. That’s the supercharged, 400-plus-horsepower V8 found in the Camaro ZL1 and Cadillac CTS-V. It’s backed by a 4L60 four-speed automatic and a 3.73:1 final drive. The car can be, Jim notes, driven anywhere.
The El Camaro then went to Crown Jewel Automotive for body and paint. “They cracked the body apart and redid the whole body to make it look like something GM made factory,” Jim notes. The red paint and hockey-stick stripes both come from the 1969 Camaro catalog.
The interior, too, now features cues from a 1969 Camaro: ’69 Camaro buckets, a ’69 Camaro center console, a ’69 Camaro shifter, a ’69 Camaro steering wheel and, well, you get the idea.
The wheels measure 17 inches across but take their styling from the ones Chevrolet fit back in 1969. Aptly, they’re wrapped with redline tires.
“The finished product was a car that people thought GM built,” Jim adds. “This car draws a large crowd everywhere it goes.” And on October 4, it’ll cross the Mecum block in search of someone new to enjoy it.
Party in the front, even bigger party in the back.
God Bless America, it's beautiful
Several years back, I toyed with the idea of getting an El Camino. Instead, I got my ’75 Pontiac wagon.
I drove my parents’ ’78 Malibu while in high school. Still intrigued by the idea of an El Camino–or, to be fancy, maybe a GMC Caballero.
What if Chevy grafted a '69 Camaro front clip onto a '79 El Camino?
I don't hate it, Its not as bad as the old Ford front clips grafted onto the '90s Thunderbirds. However, "not as bad" isn't really high praise.
So close. Those are '68 front fenders.
Overall, I'd say it's slightly worse than horrible.
I love it, would drive it daily
When I was in high school, two brothers shared a 1986 Camaro. It was a base model with a 305, nothing special. But they had a stroke of genius: they removed the hatch, tarped over the rear seats and hatch area, and they instantly had their own El Camaro. They used to haul all sorts of stuff in that thing.
This, though, is way cooler, I think.
berkeley yeah, I love this. They even grafted in the front bumper guards from an El Camino. Rear end is a little wonky but better than 99% of ute conversion.
I saw the car in person at this year's Cleveland Power & Piston show at the IX Center. It was very well executed and applaud the effort. I like the car a lot! But I will also admit that it is must have difficult to meld those two very different body lines into a perfectly cohesive match. In doing so the Camaro front sheet metal has an illusion of being ever so... "droopy" by a couple of degrees. Would that keep me from owning and driving it, hell no!
I like it and would love one , but not at what the owner has "invested" in it
it would be interesting to see some of the body shop work to make it all fit ,
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