(first posted 7/23/2013) Unlike Ford, which had an uninterrupted stream of Rancheros starting with the very first in 1957 (CC here), Chevrolet took a break during 1961-1963. Perhaps they considered the El Corvair Rampside a Ranchero substitute? But in 1964, the El Camino came back with a vengeance, on the new A-Body platform. And in the end, the El Camino would go on to well outlive the Ranchero, all the way through 1987. For some reason, the ’64s are harder to come by, unless perhaps at car shows. But since I prefer the curb to shows, here’s a pretty original survivor from 1965, which is the same as the ’64 except for the grille and a few minor trim bits.
What’s interesting about Chevy’s decision to get back into the “ute” battle is that in order to better amortize the costs of tooling up the new El Camino, they also created a two-door Chevelle 300 wagon using much of its sheet metal. A bit odd, inasmuch as the two-door wagon’s run was essentially over by then (Two-door wagon History here). A two-door sedan-delivery wagon was also listed in 1966-1967, but images are elusive. Were they ever built?
But the El Camino took root, despite a somewhat poky start in 1964. Especially by about 1968 or so, when it was available in SS form, the Elky became a two-seater alternative to the muscle cars then so popular. This one sports the badging that proclaims it started life with a 283 under the hood.
Given the aftermarket floor shifter, I rather suspect it has the ubiquitous 350/350 combo.
American “utes” weren’t designed to carry 16 tons of ballast in the bed in order to give it enough traction to pull a road train of five semi-trailers full of sheep up the steep and rugged mountain foot paths of New Zealand. In fact, they really weren’t designed for serious work at all; that’s what Humber Super Snipes and Peterbilts are for. In fact, the El Camino sat on a totally ordinary Chevelle chassis except for air-adjustable shocks, and load capacity was rated at 1200 lbs for the six, and 1100 lbs for the V8.
But the El Camino became an All-American icon, despite its lack of serious hauling creds. Anyway, a SS 396 El Camino will haul, in a different sense, as long as the lightly-loaded tires can be made to connect to the pavement adequately. Or maybe that’s not the point; perhaps the Elky was designed specifically for burning rubber.
The limited load carrying capacity of the Ranchero, the El Camino and the Caballero/Sprint is still well suited the material a suburbanite needs to carry. My frequent uses are: bicycles; one motorcycle; yard waste for composting; bark mulch; furniture bought at local auction; Christmas tree; ladders; etc.
All these cars were nice to drive and very useful; I anxiously await the ability to buy a new “ute” at my local Ford or Chevrolet dealer.
The amusing comments about Humbers and Peterbilts and sixteen tons…got me thinking. This thing was right on the tail end of a true work-hardened car/truck combination: The Studebaker Champ. The Champ provided passenger car appearances (compromised, to be sure) with a chassis that was time-tested and job rated. A work ute, IOW. Or a work-car, if you like.
The Champ didn’t sell much, mostly IMHO because Studebaker was itself circling the bowl and the Board of Directors were busily trying to hire an assassin to kill it.
What if, Chevrolet or Ford or both, had bothered to put an actual truck frame under these things? Make them able to carry what space allowed? Car styling, truck function?
Some would say, that’s where we headed anyway. We started there, with the Glamor Pickup Era…but what we have now are life-size Hot Wheels parodies of trucks.
+1
Ford basically did that in Australia. From 1994 or so you could get a one tonne-rated ute (2500lb approx) using the same unitary constructed ute, but for the 1999 redesign ran a pair of chassis rails out the back & had a separate bed or could take whatever body you wanted to fit.
The benefit of the ute/El Camino/Ranchero is not just style or economy but comfort. The Japanese pickups are often called “kidney smashers” out here due to their harsher ride, never mind the much lower-grade interiors.
Sorry to disappoint Paul I’d rather have the Elky, in this era unless you were a wealthy farmer with overseas funds you could NOT buy either here. Kiwis bought Bedford trucks mostly, the British Chevrolet or they picked on a large British or American sedan and cut it down into a ute and of course all those prewar and immediate post war pickup trucks from the US were mostly still in daily service thanks to the Cuba like attitude of our govt restricting supply to keep demand high.
Had one a 1966 model. Sold it because the handyman was more useful. Both were 283s with glides. Both 2 doors. The wagon kept my tools dry
My first car was a ’70 and due to previous owners actually using it like a truck through the years, it was beat to hell. It had more rust than most people had ever seen on a car (I’m thinking too many dips on boat ramps)which was a shame because from the factory it was very well optioned. Things like power windows, A/C, that cool washer fluid monitor under the dash, L-48 350 and dual exhaust, just a well equipped, very livable car. I had hoped to restore it, and if I had a body shell and frame, now I probably would’ve just swapped everything over. It wasn’t a SS but with the amount of options on it and how much I liked the car, it would’ve been worth it to me. Was able to get the original MSO on it and titles and it sold for $3608 in 1970. Sat on the lot for five months after it was built too I found. Lousy pic of it below.
SS is overrated anyway. Yours was quite rare & just as desirable in my opinion. I’ve never seen power windows in a pre-’73 El Nino.
I haven’t either, sometimes I wish I wasn’t so hasty selling it! It was just one of those projects that got sidelined and I didn’t think I’d ever have the time or money to tackle it. Swore I’d never sell it when I was 17! It made a good daily driver though, just had a very ragged body.
Of all the Elkys this is my favorite body style. It just pulls off the truck look much better than the 68-72 or Colonnades though the 78-up pulls it off pretty well. I’d say other than the Buick Sportwagon this is my favorite of the first generation of the intermediate A-body.
Say what you will about the load capacity of these trucks but it pretty much matched the full size 1/2 ton offerings of the era in base form. From what I’ve found the 65 F100 tips the scales at ~3200 lbs in base short bed form and the base springs were good for 3910 lbs total. Or only about 700lbs worth of pay load. Yes you could outfit them for up to 5000lbs GVW while the most common package was 4700 lbs and a long bed tipped the scales at .~3500 lbs in base form. Throw in a V8 and/or AT and the payload gets worse.
Certainly they are capable of hauling as much as many current “3/4” ton trucks normally do which is a guy and a six pack.
No one who owned an El Camino (or a Ranchero) ever paid any attention to the rated load capacity. The standard operating procedure was to put as much in the bed as it would hold, then, if the rear fenders rubbed on the tires, take out enough cargo so that they didn’t. Yes, that was hard on the springs and, yes, an El Camino with that much in the bed felt like the front tires were up on the ground. I wouldn’t want to drive an El Camino with a ton of gravel in the bed across country, but it was perfectly acceptable to drive home from the sand & gravel company that way.
I would have loved one of these if I had a small lawn care business in the 1970s. A couple of push mowers, some tools for trimming and edging… low to the ground for a good lift over height.
…and sexual favours from frustrated housewives… (ref thunderbolt and lightfoot)
Only ever seen one 65 in the metal outside Crocs in Rayleigh Essex when Hanoi Rocks were playing in 1983ish.The ElCamino looks like the sort of ride Andy McCoy would have
If all the emblems were removed from this vehicle, it could almost pass as a Ford. This is very Ford-like to me (not a bad thing necessarily).
Those wheels belong in the scrap pile.
At least they are not Chevy rally wheels. 🙂
I had that coming…
I personally prefer the 1966-67 generation. I always found the 64-65 Chevy version of the A body to be fairly thick and stubby. Even Oldsmobile came off better in the styling department for 64-65 (though not 66-67).
However, this trucklet’s larger size compared with the Falcon Ranchero would be attractive. I think that a 283/3 speed/OD would be a nice combo. Powerglide? No thanks.
That two door wagon really should have been made in Nomad trim. The pillar even slants right!
The stylists just have to have had the 1955-57 Nomad wagon in mind when they were designing the ’64 Chevelle two-door wagon.
From the article: “A two-door sedan-delivery wagon was also listed in 1966-1967, but images are elusive. Were they ever built?”
A 1966-67 Chevelle two-door sedan delivery? First I’ve ever heard of it.
One of my uncles bought a new ’70 or ’71 El Camino as his company car. As with any Chevelle with a 350 at that time, it moved effortlessly and quietly and rode well. The only problem was that my uncle ran a local hog market in western Illinois, and as many of you might guess, the job involved walking through a sea of pig shit every day. Which, of course, would get tracked into the El Camino every night. The offending matter would combine with the plush carpeting such that you could never get rid of the smell no matter what you did. Some people find this offensive.
Hog shit? That’s the smell of money in my neck of the woods.
You’d think Uncle would’ve been better off with a base model truck with rubber mats and vinyl seats and the ever-increasing popularity in the Midwest early 70s of having A/C and automatic . . . .
Our next-door neighbor drove El Caminos for many years. He was a building contractor (acoustical ceilings), and this was a perfect car for the boss on a construction site. He was never the one who did the heavy hauling, but he did make use of the bed from time to time. Why not have a vehicle that’s more comfortable and civilized than the still-utilitarian pickups of that era?
Today, with King Ranch F-150s and Laramie Longhorn Rams on offer, there’s no niche left for a ute in the American market. But for those who never do any heavy hauling, you have to admit an El Camino would be a far less silly choice than the many gargantuan, leather-lined, 11-mpg crew-cab trucks on the road that have never had their beds soiled by any kind of load.
“Unlike Ford, which had an uninterrupted stream of Rancheros starting with the very first in 1957 (CC here), Chevrolet took a break during 1961-1963. Perhaps they considered the El Corvair Rampside a Ranchero substitute? But in 1964, the El Camino came back with a vengeance, on the new A-Body platform.”
When Ford introduced the original Ranchero, I guess Chevrolet felt it needed to have the same thing. By the time they got it on the market, though, sales were underwhelming. One might cite several possible reasons: the novelty had worn off; there wasn’t enough of a market for “half cars, half pickups” to support two competing models; the U.S. economy was in the midst of its worst economic downturn since the 1930s; the increasingly larger standard-sized cars that Ford and Chevrolet were rolling out in this era were not well suited to this type of vehicle. In any event, when Chevy dropped the El Camino after 1960, I think they were just done with it, and I’d be surprised if there were any concrete plans at that point to eventually bring it back on a different platform.
Chevy’s decision to drop its fullsize two-door wagons and sedan deliveries (which both shared a lot of tooling with the El Camino) after 1960 was probably also a factor. I don’t think the Corvair trucks were seen as a direct replacement for the El Camino, but Chevy may have felt that some of the market that the Ranchero and El Camino had been trying to reach would gravitate towards the new Corvair and Econoline pickups, giving them one more reason not to sell El Caminos anymore.
As it turned out, Ford didn’t disagree with the notion that a ‘ute’ built off of a fullsize car platform was a dead end, and had already moved the Ranchero to the new compact Falcon platform. There they had a fair amount of success with it (nothing spectacular, but enough to justify keeping it in production for future years). I presume this caught GM’s attention, but they must have felt that the Falcon-based Ranchero was a bit too small, and took note that the emerging class of intermediate-sized cars were similar in size to the standard-sized cars Ford and Chevy were selling back when Ford created the Ranchero in 1957. So GM chose the new-for-1964 intermediate A-body as the place to revive the El Camino. This proved to be a stronger seller than the Falcon-based Ranchero (again, nothing amazing, but enough to carve out a niche), eventually prompting Ford to upsize the Ranchero into the intermediate class so it could better match up.
IIRC the 59-60 ElCamino was uber expensive, compared to the rest of the A-B-C-Body Chevies. I couldn’t find the exact prices but one must remember that there was only one trim level on the 59-60 which was one trim level below the top of the line Impala where as every single model was available in the base Biscayne trim level. IMO that is why there was no 61 ElCamino. I guess it was the Aztek of its era. Not so much in the styling department but in the fact that its price was responsable for its slow sales.
The impression I’ve gotten is that the intermediate El Camino was initially a regional thing: strong in the Southwest and West Coast, not so much elsewhere.
GMH and Ford had been building car based coup’e utilities in Australia since Fords Lew Brandt invented the thing for the 1934 model year anyone who wanted the rural market had a go as well including Armstrong Sideley GMH by the 50s built 3 grades of ute the unitary Holden was bottom of the range and cheapest next up the price ladder was the Vauxhall Wyvern4 and Velox 6 Holdens used nearly the entire VauxhallBedford light commercial parts bin to produce the utes and it was rather clever how the did it, At the top of the tree sat Chevrolet ute predating the Elcamino some 10 years even before the internet informed you of it GM was sending its designs around the globe to its local markets
Did GMH actually build a Vauxhall Wyvern ute? It would have been pretty useless surely, with that gutless four trying to haul a load. A quarter-ton of feathers maybe? 🙂 All the ones I ever saw were Veloxes.
The Falcon based Ranchero could carry quite a load 🙂 How much does a ’64 Lincoln weigh anyway?
Plus all the gold in its trunk…
“In fact, they really weren’t designed for serious work at all; that’s what Humber Super Snipes and Peterbilts are for. In fact, the El Camino sat on a totally ordinary Chevelle chassis except for air-adjustable shocks, and load capacity was rated at 1200 lbs for the six, and 1100 lbs for the V8.”
“What if, Chevrolet or Ford or both, had bothered to put an actual truck frame under these things? Make them able to carry what space allowed? Car styling, truck function?”
Hmm? Speaking as a former and current ElCamino owner I have to say, not everyone knows this, but the 78-87 generation does sit on an actual truck frame. If you count the 82-05 S-10 a “real” truck. There is not much difference between these two other than the side rails aren’t “full”(they are kind of a half ass C-section) on the ElCamino and the rear suspensions. I’ve always called the S-10 a G-Body with leaf springs.
Factoid: The ElCamino is the only truck to be designed by Chevrolet and not GMC/Fisher Body. That might be different today but back in the days Chevy had full control over the styling because the ElCamino was a Chevelle truck and not a GMC with a Chevrolet grille.
Serious work? My father once had a 79 ElCamino that quite handily towed the family 18 foot boat. I did the same with mine except I towed a race car trailer. Just add some cargo coils to compliment the air shocks and upgrade to a auxillary transmission cooler and you have one great hauler.
The interesting thing is that while the 2wd S-series used the G body front suspension the 4wd S-series borrowed theirs from the Eldo. I don’t know if you can say the Elky is on a truck frame since the only thing that is really shared is that front suspension.
Hmm – 4WD El Camino anybody?
In Dallas El Caminos and Rancheros were, at one time, very popular among interior decorators. They could haul furniture and stuff. Most important, they looked good. Not good for an interior decorator to drive an ugly vehicle. It tends to put off the clients.
Another one of my storage yard classics is a 1971 GMC Sprint that I rescued from the same salvage yard as my Ventura. It sports an “Invader 350” with a 2-bbl. carb, Turbo 350 trans, roll-up windows, and no A/C.
I call it The Flying Turd because frankly, that’s what it looks like. Faded factory root beer brown piant, huge dents in the driver’s side fender and door, and the usual rot in the lower rear quarters. Both literally and figuratively, it looks like doo-doo. It runs good though.
If I don’t sell it first it’ll eventually be painted Hugger Orange with white rally stripes, five-slot rallys, and 454 power under the hood.
Paul must have been at the Adult Shop again. *insert load capacity joke here*
Also, fwiw, the Big Deals store kinda sucks but they do have dirt cheap rugs.
Am I missing something with the Humber Super Snipe reference? Isn’t that a sedan?
According to Bryce, the Super Snipe can carry bigger and heavier loads in its trunk than an El Camino 😉
They do cut down into quite a useful truck and as we saw with the ambulance their mechanical ilk has commercial applications Kiwi ingenuity often married the two, factory approved yeah nar 2x 44 gallon drums of fuel will lay sidebyside in the trunk as you call it of a supersnipe if the lid is off, a dozen fence posts and rolls of wire get carried for traction with the rest of the lighter gear on a trailer for farm fencing too but we were’nt discussing how cars have been treated here were we
Little known fact recently revealed on a local FB classic car site Humber actually built a SuperSnipe pickup with the brochure reproduced and all, considering how tough the cars were it wasnt a total surprise.
Didn’t the early postwar ones use a Commer truck engine?
I havent tried overloading an ElCamino Paul lack of opportunity mostly and I see by old yella you stayed away from the bottom of the food chain too Ive towed a very heavy 110,000 volt switching transformer with a Bedford truck on rails admittedly but you had to move it for the first time in 30 years the Bedford was jumping on concrete but the tranny was vital and the govt had thousands of Bedford trucks and it worked, some extraweight the hiab arm laying on the deck for safety and away we went this thing had a diesel but most TJ Rockets as the Pakistanis call them were 5L petrol l6 same engine as the TK coe trucks.
When it is broadcast watch Jeremy Clarkson race a New Zealand Americas cup yacht from Coromandel to the far North of New Zealand James May joins the boat crew and Clarkson hires a New Zealand market Toyota Corolla to beat him with. He loved our roads especially the far north where I drove a TK Bedford 30 odd years ago.. Clarkeson cant drive for shit he is not spacially aware enough and he proves it but look anyway.
The demise of the El Camino and Ranchero is directly correlated to the transformation of the full-size, short-bed, regular cab pickup truck from a hard-riding, sparse, strictly work/farm vehicle to something that featured the creature comforts and amenities of a car, rendering the El Camino and Ranchero irrelevant.
It didn’t help matters any when the minivan came along and wiped-out all RWD station wagon platforms from which the El Camino and Ranchero could be easily and cost-effectively derived.
Seems like the ’03-’06 Subaru Legacy Outback Baja was the last foray into the car/truck hybrid field:
I think you are right. They continue in Australia of course, and even there things have evolved. The Ford Falcon has gone from a unibody to a hybrid construction with rear chassis and separate bed, with a 1-tonne option. The Holden Commodore went from a live axle to IRS and much more of a “sports car with a giant trunk” position rather than a serious work vehicle.
Love my ’65 Elk! 396 (out of a 68 Chevelle SS), 411s, 12 bolt, 4spd., buckets, power steering, tac in dash, front disk brakes, dark green metallic paint, beefed up suspension, power steering, 16″ rally wheels w/ beauty rings, new quarter panels, all new trim & moldings, and very fast. Still a work in progress, need interior, stereo & air. Its been in the family since ’67. Bought it from my brother in ’69 (senior year). Most work is recent.
Are these El Camino/Ranchero utes getting rarer in the US? Just wondering as numbers here seem to be growing, all models are popular mostly as hotrods/street machines though Ive seen the odd one or two earning their gas.
Rarer in original/unrestored and daily use. But not uncommon overall, especially the final generation, and the previous generation Colonnades, less so these early ones.
By the way, I missed this posting first time around, with its reference to Humbers and Peterbilts, but I’ve been an owner for almost 60 years of a much cherished Humber (1/43rd scale Dinky variety) as well as being a former employee of Peterbilt. And I can say with some certainty that Paul’s post may be the first time those two marque names have appeared together in one sentence.
Typical Pete drivers aren’t very humber are they?
I never noticed that about the 2 door chevelle wagons.
Mine is certainly effective at getting thumbs up!
…And the attention of local cops. I should really put a muffler on her.
Seems strange that Chevy would go to the trouble and expense of tooling up for a two-door Chevelle wagon just so they could share the panels-minus-roof with the El Camino. A more sensible approach would have been to adopt the Australian aesthetic and use four-door sedan front doors with a shorter roof and longer bed.
Holden built their utes on a wagon floor pan up to the HG model, wagon/sedan doors etc saved on tooling I guess,
Peak Aussie ute.
Sneaky of Ford to use the slow-selling hardtop doors. But certainly the prettiest ute.
I had a friend (now sadly passed) who kept the near-immaculate yellow XC ute he had on the farm when he retired and moved into town. Didn’t need a sedan, though he had one of them too (XE Fairmont ESP). He was always having people coming up to him wanting to buy the ute, and finally sold it about 2010.
Pete, I would love to have a XA ute with GS Pack, it is a constant in my ever changing list of favourites.
It would have been 1972 or early 73 I was 10 years old and walking home from school, a neighbour had just bought a metallic green GS ute with tan interior, and he stopped to give me a ride, I have never forgotton that car, I was in love with the modern world of the early 70s,I remember my srcrawny fingers struggling with the interior door handle to open the big heavy door but I was in heaven for a while there.
Two-door wagons were still a thing in 1961–1962 when Chevy was planning and tooling the first Chevelle (fall 1963 intro). They didn’t bother reskinning the two door wagon for the 1966 refresh, and tooled a new El Camino on the 116″ sedan/wagon wheelbase without a two door wagon for 1968.
I’ve always viewed the El Camino/Ranchero as a “gentleman’s truck” rather than a serious working truck. It’s a nice, comfortable vehicle for errands around town or weekend trips to nature (no off-roading). But for serious hauling, you should reserve the 1/2-ton or 3/4-ton truck for that kind of job.
But the one mystery about the El Camino that I’ve never been able to figure out. In every El Camino I’ve seen, in the bed floor just forward forward of the wheelwell is a “dividing line” that stretches across the bed width. See picture 4 in Paul’s article. Attached is another El Camino with the same line (note arrow).
Anyone know whether there’s a under bed storage compartment or is it some kind of access panel?
There would be a compartment of sorts under there – it’s the wagon’s rear-seat footwell.
It can be hinged.
Be a car or a truck. Make up your mind and stop trying to be both!
Just kidding. I like El Caminos. I enjoyed the article.
But I really like that green wagon. Usually on worn-looking cars like that I start imagining what I would do to improve it’s looks for cheap and all that. Don’t usually care for patina and that kind of stuff. Im often stuck with it on my old cars but wouldn’t choose it. But on that wagon it’s weathered look only seems to make it cooler. Even the plain black wheels look good on it.
Maybe I’m finally coming around.