It was a random day in Crown Point, a town of about 27,000 in Indiana’s northwest-most county. We were there visiting one of my wife’s sisters and her husband for lunch. Crown Point, it turns out, is almost a perfect halfway point between our homes. There wasn’t anything special happening on the town square that day, so it was a real surprise to find three old cars parked curbside there. The first one was this final-generation El Camino.
I date this one to 1982-85 based on its four-headlight front end and lack of CHMSL. The earlier two-headlight El Caminos (1979-81) are pretty rare out here but I see these later ElCams still rolling several times a year.
When you get up close you can see little dings and paint scratches that come with age and use. But it appears to be complete and in good condition. This one’s a well-cared-for survivor.
In contrast, this breadbox Bus has been restored. I respect the use of those dog-dish hubcaps. It speaks to restraint in the restoration.
When I was a kid in the 70s a trio of sisters up the street drove a Bus in this color scheme, bestickered as was the practice at the time. So it was a blast from my past to find this one. This Bus was stickered too, but discreetly: all on the windows. Back in the day, people slapped stickers right onto the paint.
I’ve noticed an increase in Historic plates on older Indiana cars. Years ago you could get an Antique plate for a car 25 or more years old, but the car had to be a collectible or a leisure item and you couldn’t use it as primary transportation. The upside was that the plate was significantly less expensive than a regular plate. Indiana bundles a lot of taxes into its plates, making them surprisingly expensive compared to other states. Now the Antique plate is called a Collector plate and still has the reduced fees, while the Historic plate is at full cost but lets you drive your old car anytime and anywhere you want.
My favorite find of the day was this ’67 Plymouth Fury II. It’s probably been fully 25 years since I’ve seen a Plymouth of this generation on the road. I’ve encountered them at shows and auctions, but always hardtops and convertibles.
This thing is clearly a survivor with all of those dings and rust spots. But this owner is making the car his own by adding some pinstripes and attaching those big mirrored wheel covers.
I would have loved to hear this one start and run. Would I have heard the Slant Six or the venerable 318? Either way, it would have been real music from my childhood.
Great finds! To fill in on the geography a bit, Crown Point is not far to the south of Gary, Indiana which is a stone’s throw from the Illinois border. This is part of Chicagoland. Which explains all of the rust on that Plymouth. It has clearly been given a Bondo job at some point earlier in its life and is in need of another.
I always would have preferred a 67 to the 66 I had. First, I liked the styling just a teeny bit better. But more important the 318 in the 67 would have been the modern LA engine instead of the last year of the old wideblock that I had also had in my 1959 Plymouth. The newer engine was a better performer and was (by the late 80s) easier to find parts for.
That Elky looks really sweet for that area. It does not look rusty at all.
That Plymouth Fury there looks like the prototypical background car for movies. It would sometimes seem as though there was nothing else on the road, due to the sheer quantity of them that showed up on the silver screen!
The 4.3/fuel injection Badge on the El Camino tailgate narrows the age down to ’85-’87.
The El Camino also came with Corvette/Camaro style mirrors in ’86 and ’87. The mirrors on this car are aftermarket, but they appear to use mounting points for the newer mirrors, so let’s throw out 1985 as well.
Right there is where they filmed part of that Johnny Depp movie about John Dillinger at the old courthouse. I forget…was it called Public Enemy? Anyway, I live a few miles from there and they have a lot of classic cars around there. It is a nice place. Come to think of it, I may have seen that El Camino before…
The movie people deserve credit for using the actual courthouse from which Dillinger escaped the jail. There was a Dillinger museum there about three years ago and I was lucky enough to visit it on a trip to Merrillville.
Maybe a decade ago, there was quite an interesting tidbit about Crown Point and Dillinger. It seems the Crown Point sheriff’s office still possessed a Thompson machine gun that had been used by Dillinger. Well, they wanted to get rid of it, but instead of selling it, the sheriff didn’t want anyone profiting off of Dillinger’s criminal notoriety so, rather than auctioning it off for a princely sum, he had it destroyed.
While his integrity was laudable and a noble gesture, it would seem debatable as to whether it was the best course of action. It certainly wasn’t in the best financial interest of Crown Point, that’s for sure.
Same as my 84 Elcamino. Same colors, and likely loaded with accessories as mine. But mine had WW tires and GM Corporate, Chevy spec wire wheel covers. I also had a Bi-Level (not an extreme mullet) haircut at the time as well.
Business in the front, party in the back, eh?
I saw a similar El Camino Conquista recently too — this one’s an ’87. Since it was a final-model-year example and a Conquista to boot, I felt compelled to stop and take a picture.
Interesting that your example here has the 4.3 V-6 and dual exhausts.
Well, it has a 4.3 V-6 badge. but who knows what is under-hood. Dropping a small block into a V-6 engine bay is damn near a bolt in process. The V-8 matches the existing bell housing, the frame has holes for the engine mounts, and the only other component requiring an upgrade is the radiator.
I have a 4.3 in my ’87 El Camino because I find it’s the best compromise between drivability, fuel economy and power (keep in mind, the factory used a carburetor on the 305 until the end of production). However, about every three weeks someone tells me “You ought to drop a V-8 in there!”
Oddly enough, I saw this 67 Fury just the other day. El Caminos never had the CHMSL as they were considered trucks and it wasn’t required at the time.
That’s true. CHMSL started on trucks in ‘93.
Growing up, we had a ‘67 Fury III wagon for our family car. Rare find around here these days.
Great finds indeed and I especially like the Plymouth. I have seen a few of those Indiana Historic Plates even out here in Oregon though our DMV classifies the plate type as Special Interest instead of historic. If I could put Special Interest Plates on my 93 Camry and daily drive it without breaking the law I would so just because.
I visited this Court house in Crown Point once about 18yrs ago. I was there because of a ticked I got in Westville, IN. I was on my way back to Chicago after spending Labor day weekend in Auburn, IN. When I got the ticked and when I went to the courthouse I was using my 1974 Plymouth Duster, so maybe the local sheriff is targeting curbsides. Vehicular profiling??
I’ve been to Westville; my oldest friend lived there for a number of years. Didn’t know they even had cops.
Digging the 67 Plymouth. I always figured I’d own one at some point. It just didn’t happen. I was so confident that I’d own one thatI bought a book at a yardsale 40 years ago called “Fix Your Plymouth”. I’ve never referred to it. It’s up in the attic in a box somewhere. I only paid a quarter for it. Twenty-five cent dream…priceless!
This generation 4 door Plymouth Fury was HUGE inside; with a trunk capable of carrying several Mafia dead bodies. A true 6 passenger car.
The 318/Torqueflite powertrain was quite “Real World” peppy & pleasing; much more than a same year 283/PG Chevy.
For this year Chevy and Plymouth were very close in power steering “road feel” (which is to say not much at all).
Peppy – this is true, my Dad had a new ’67 Fury III 4 dr hardtop with the brand new LA 318 and TF. I got my license that year and can tell you it would smoke the tires no problem and was faster than our ’63 Ford with a 352.
What a trio! I love how your last shot catches the strange mid-C-Pillar vertical crimp that Elwood Engel favored. I get the horizontal crimp on his 2-door hardtops, which also had the vertical crimp. It’s designed to look like a convertible top, a more stylized version of GM’s earlier ’62 through ’64 design. But what he was trying to suggest or do with these vertical crimps escapes me.
I’m guessing if all-original, the Elco is an ’85. I don’t think the 4.3 version of the 90-degree SBC-based V6 existed before then and ’86 was the first year of the CHMSL.
EDIT – I just saw it wasn’t required on trucks ’til ’93. Color me corrected. 🙂
Yeah, I learned the same thing from the comments on this post.
I always thought that this last generation El Camino was stubby and chopped off looking.
Given the interior room and bed capacity of both the Ford and the Chevy, the last generation Ranchero was a much more graceful looking car/truck.
1967 has to be one of Plymouth’s three best years (if not the best). Besides the swoopy new Barracuda with zero Valiant sheetmetal, both the brand-new Valiant and Fury had what could be considered the ultimate domestic three-box car design. The sedans and wagons were simple and practical, and Engel put in just the right amount of character to keep them clean and stylish.
Sure, GM and Ford had some great cars in 1967, too (as well as the other Chrysler lines), but, for me, 1967 was the year of the “Out to Win You Over!” Plymouth.
Another acronym I’ve never heard of: CHMSL.
That’s cool to find 3 very different CC’s in such a consolidated area. I’d have had to go over to all three and give them a serious look-over. I haven’t seen a ’67 Fury III in forever.
ALSO, in regards to the Collector/Historic plates I find that quite interesting. How would the state of Indiana know if you drove a ‘Collector’ car frequently if you’d bought the reduced-fee ‘Collector’ plate? Do they actually check the mileage at the DMV every year or something? I noted the purchase of a ‘Historic’ plate for a 25+ year-old car was the same price as a late-model car. At least it isn’t more . . .
When I lived in FL I was always able to get an antique plate for my ’64 Falcon free. I liked that! I’d pay for the lil’ registration sticker every year — it was $21.10 or so — and stick it on the plate and . . . away we go for a lot less than other FL drivers had to pay. Then I moved to GA in 2008 and that went out the window. The lil’ yearly sticker isn’t so expensive (it’s about $38), but to get an antique plate here costs $double$. So instead of me paying approx. $36 for a standard Georgia license plate if I want an antique plate it was going to cost me $72. Ouch! From free of charge to double the charge . . . I stick with the ‘standard’ GA plate. I sure wish the Historic/Antique/Collectible plate was the same price as the regular license plate, but all the ‘Specialty’ plates cost considerably extra. → Even if the cost of an antique plate was $41 I’d pay $5 extra dollars so the Falcon could have a historic plate . . . but noooooo!
EDIT: Looks like it’s now $80 + the applicable ad valorem tax to get a ‘Hobby Antique’ plate in GA plus $55 to renew. Too rich for my blood!