Vehicle Description
Small pickups that were easy to drive had been around for quite a
while. Station wagon-based pickups came next, but tended to be
pretty basic. By 1976, the El Camino had built a vehicle with the
best of both worlds. Luxury features transferred in from the
high-end cars of the time, and chassis design that offered a nice
ride with substantial hauling capability at the same time. This car
has all that, then dresses it in gorgeous gloss black paint and
adds a few engine mods that give it a mean little rumble at idle.
Check it out.
The silhouette of this car is long and lean and just begs to be
painted black. The hood and the bed rails slope gently toward the
cab which has a windshield that rakes back on a steep angle and is
matched by the angle the sail panel cuts as it blends from the back
window onto the bed rails. Make that look even lower and leaner by
adding an SS stripe that wraps around from one front fender to the
other, and you have one sweet looking car,... or truck,... or SUV.
Except that term wasn't being used yet. The front end is dressed up
with a chrome grill of vertical bars flanked by rectangular quad
headlights and underlined by a sharp looking bumper. On the side,
add a couple body colored sport mirrors, and at the rear add a big
SS to the stripe along with El Camino in script underlined by
another chrome bumper. Spray the bed with Line-X and you have one
sweet looking ride.
Open the door and you will find an interior out of a high-end car.
The door panel has a smooth upper with styled squares in the center
edged by chrome piping and a comfortable armrest for cruising. A
split bench seat with a fold down center armrest is comfortable and
everything is nicely covered in black vinyl. There are a few signs
that this ride has a bit of attitude under the hood with a beefy
Grant GT steering wheel and a column mounted tach, along with a
T-handle shifter for the automatic transmission mounted in the
floor. The stock dash is neat and clean with supplemental Sunpro
gauges mounted underneath to help keep track of water temp, oil
pressure and voltage. There is an AM/FM cassette player for your
listening pleasure and the updated R134 A/C blows nice and cold. GM
did some quality soundproofing by adding a double panel roof along
with a nice headliner, and good-looking carpeting ties it all
together.
Pop the hood and you will find a healthy 350 cubic inch engine that
is nicely dressed out sitting in a neat and clean engine bay. A
black air filter housing looks great with a bowtie and Chevrolet in
red held down by a red bowtie wingnut. That sits on top of an
Edelbrock 4-barrel carb and intake manifold. Black valve covers
match the air filter with the same red bowtie and Chevrolet in
script and look good sitting just over the long tube headers
winding their way out the bottom. The overall look of the engine
bay is bad to the bone. Flowmaster mufflers along with the headers
give the car a healthy rumble at idle. Power front disc brakes
assure good braking ability and GM chassis engineers equipped the
car with specially matched spring rates for a good ride without
sacrificing payload and added beefy sway bars to assure good
handling. The rubber meets the road through 255/60R15 BFGoodrich
Radial T/A tires all around mounted on Rally wheels.
Good looking, comfortable, capable. What are you waiting for? Come
on down and check out this sweet ride.
