I recently recovered a treasure trove of a ton of photographs I had taken dating back to the late 2000s, and it’s hard to overstate how much joy this brings me. To again have access to these digital files I had thought were missing, lost, or out of reach has been like receiving the biggest Christmas present months in advance. I’ve been writing here at CC long enough (since 2015) to span the use of three different computers. I’ve always been smart enough to back up my files, but for whatever reason, my last computer was unable to read either one of my external hard drives. I had read a few articles that had stated something about incompatibility with my operating system, blah, blah, blah. I had held out hope that I would one day find the box that held my camera’s memory cards from over a decade ago, but each subsequent search through my main bedroom closet had yielded nothing. This all changed when my new computer, purchased this fall, was able to read my old external hard drive with ease.
I had taken many pictures as a teenager and young adult (before my mother had taken back the camera she had given me; that’s a whole different story), but I hadn’t really gotten back into doing so until the late 2000s, when I had planned my first trip back to my hometown of Flint, Michigan in almost a decade. I didn’t want to rely on disposable cameras as I had done since the ’90s, wanting instead to get good quality pictures of what was initially to be just a return for an informal high school alumni gathering. My little Canon PowerShot A480, the predecessor to the Canon A495 which replaced it, and that trip back to Flint had rekindled a deep love for both photography and my hometown. It has been a rare stretch of time since then when I haven’t taken pictures during any given week.
Lots of photo editing software available around 2009, as now, had many novel effects with which I had a lot of fun messing around. There were ways to process photos to make them look old or vintage, filters to make it look like the chemical balance used to develop the “film” was off, and so forth. I had used many such effects when editing many pictures at the same time that I was refamiliarizing myself with basic photography principles, like good lighting and composition. The end results of this experimentation were a bunch of pictures uploaded to my Flickr page that had a decidedly amateurish quality to them – not for what I had seen or captured, but for how I had altered those images using special effects, some of which now seem quite juvenile or passé.
I had sought for years to find the original digital files to re-edit those photos with a more back-to-basics approach, with slight corrections to rotation, exposure, and cropping. Many of those frames had captured people, places, things, and a time that do not exist today in the exact same form in which they had appeared when I had originally pushed the shutter button. Ninety-five percent of the time, there was enough going on when I had hit “click” that nothing else fundamental needed to be added to or subtracted from the scene that I was trying to capture and present.
Exactly one month ago, I was on my way to the Lakeview neighborhood using an alternate way of getting there. I would normally take the southbound Red Line train from Edgewater to the Addison station adjacent to Wrigley Field, but the CTA was doing construction on the tracks that weekend, and the southbound trains weren’t stopping at Addison. Hence, walking to the bus stop brought me one stoplight away from our featured truck. Everything happens for a reason. As I had alluded to above, I almost always have my camera with me, so I got as many shots as I could in the short time before my bus arrived.
The 1959 Chevrolet is full of so many different external stylistic details that trying to capture as many of them as possible while the clock was ticking was a challenge. Speaking only of the standard Chevrolet passenger cars on which the El Camino was based, in just the two model years between 1957 and ’59, the newer car was almost eleven inches longer, seven inches wider, and on average weighed about three hundred pounds more. It wasn’t just the styling of the ’59 that was extreme, but the cars had physically grown in that classic lower-longer-wider formula. With that said and with General Motors likely influenced by attempting to outdo the aesthetics of the beautiful Forward Look cars from Chrysler, GM stylists clearly went ape.
I wasn’t alive when the ’59 Chevy was new, but I have long since become familiar with what else was on the market at the time, and it’s clear that the design of the ’59 was so extra. The thick eyebrows over the headlamps. The squinting taillamps. The bat-wing sculptured trunk. It was a lot. I hadn’t even realized at the time I was taking these pictures that this was a first-year El Camino. Before looking it up and if I had been asked to make a bet, sight unseen, I might have wagered that ’58 might have been its first year given its larger apparent size than the ’57. Just over 22,200 El Caminos were sold for ’59 and another 14,200 the next year before Chevrolet took some time off to regroup with the concept, bringing it back for ’64 as a midsized Chevelle-based machine.
Getting back to my original premise, though, if ever there was a year and make of vehicle that didn’t need anything else ladled on from a visual perspective, it’s the ’59 Chevy. I was surprised to learn that the late, famed customization guru George Barris had modified a ’59 Chevrolet, as I could otherwise have imagined him looking at one and thinking there was no blank canvas on which for him to apply his figurative paint. This El Camino is only a mild custom, in all honesty, and the modifications to the sides amount to not much more than custom paint and wheels. It’s up front, though, where it becomes apparent that most of the efforts and budget were spent.
I wouldn’t have immediately put it together that this front grille looks sourced from a 1960 Mercury if it hadn’t been for my friend and fellow contributor Jason Shafer having mentioned this on the day I had snapped and posted some cell phone pictures of this truck. Though this El Camino was mostly rust free and cared for, it seems from these pictures that this was an older customization. What I can’t tell is how old of a customization it was. In my mind, this would be pertinent to understanding the context in which the owner at the time had (or had not) assessed the inherent, special bizarreness of the first-year ’59 El Camino.
You know what else this truck really needs? To look like a Mercury up front. I don’t think this custom grille looks bad at all. In fact, it could have been way worse. The front fascia of the 1960 Mercury was cleanly styled and decent looking, even if each of its pairs of “eyes” on either side of its face were set too far apart from each other. What it comes down to for me, though, is that like many of those pictures I had taken fifteen years ago, and though some of that earlier edit work was fun and novel, none of those alterations were actually needed for the subject material to be interesting.
The great thing here is that none of the changes to this ’59 El Camino look irreversible. Okay… I admit it. The look of this Merc-O-Mino had started to grow on me long before I had sat down to write this. Surely there have to be some other, stock-looking ’59 El Caminos left to fly the flag, but when it comes to my photography, I’ve learned that it’s often more effective just to keep it simple. Get ready in 2026 for more of my curbside finds from fifteen years ago!
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, November 2, 2025.
Brochure photos were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org. Click here and here for more reading on the 1959 Chevrolet.
Mind you, I would very strongly suggest that GMs first Chevrolet El Camino was not released in 1959, but ten years earlier when Australia’s General Motors Holden (GMH) released a passenger car front 1949 Chevrolet Coupe Utility. This ‘49 Chevrolet was in every way an El Camino but of course did not wear El Camino badges.
GMH world continue to build Chevrolet passenger car fronted coupe utilities until 1952. Years before the idea hit U.S.A. Streets. In addition, GMH in Australia had offered Passenger car Chevrolet utilities as far back as the early 1930s.
Ford Australia of course was the first offer passenger car fronted utilities (Trucks). So the ‘59 Chevrolet El Camino would not have existed had it not been for Australia. Thank you Australia!
Sadly few ever acknowledge the above facts when writing about 1959 Chevrolet El Caminos.
This ‘49 Chevrolet was in every way an El Camino but of course did not wear El Camino badges.
So it wasn’t an El Camino, even if it was a coupe utility. That wasn’t part of my premise.
But thanks for this info. One of our writers from Oceania might have written a history of the coupe utility here that includes a reference to the ’49 Holden you referenced.
I agree with your response in all respects but one, that being your reference to “Holden”. The 1949 Passenger car fronted utility built by GMH was not a 49’ Holden. It was in every respect, a 1949 Chevrolet which GMH assembled from a combination of imported Chevrolet parts and GMH parts.
“Holden” was a brand of car and not a car manufacturer as many want to claim. General Motors Holden was the company that assembled Pontiac, Chevrolet and the mass market Holden. There was never a Holden company. It was GMH who sold mainstream Holdens alongside other brands.
GMH of course has in recent times been replaced in Australian by General Motors Special Vehicles (GMSV). But the point here is that Chevrolets assembled by GMH from 1949 to early 1970 were Chevrolets and not Holdens.
No doubt there has been fabrication, alteration, and modification to make that Mercury grille fit, but it sure does look natural in there and does give something even more unique to look at. Given how prevalent a ’60 Mercury is not, I’m guessing this modification likely happened sometime in the 1960s. That is based upon nothing, but I’m thinking in terms of a ’60 Mercury being readily available. That hasn’t been the case in our lifetimes.
If you have lots of old pictures, bring them on. While I mentioned this a few days ago, I have all my parent’s old Kodachrome slides with some pictures of an 11 month old me, in full 1970’s toddler fashion, standing behind the wheel of my parent’s ’70 Ford F-100 while on a trip to Minnesota. Another picture set is of their ’73 Torino taken Easter Sunday 1977 or 1978.
Your mother took back something she gave you? That’s happened here also with bedroom furniture. When she recently relocated to Cincinnati she got all of $1 for the set. Darn the luck.
Jason, first of all, thanks for identifying the grille last month. That was a head-scratcher for me. I was leaning in a completely different, Oldsmobile direction when trying to place it. It was the headlight spacing that made me think Olds.
I like your theory about this being a 1960s conversion. I just like that someone had put two and two together and thought a ’60 Mercury grille would look good on a ’59 El Camino.
The Olds of the time was my first guess too, but Jason is our Mercury expert here, so good catch!
Jason is the resident Mercury expert. I mean, anyone who had Steve McGarrett as his onetime CC profile pic…
When I was a young lad we lived in a self-contained housing allotment that was built as housing for the factory employees. Mr. Neal lived in the biggest house in the allotment and owned a 1959 el Camino, my young self thought it was the coolest car ever. My friend David, RIP, bought his grandpa’s 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne and painted it in the psychedelic colors of the time (1969).
I can imagine that the lines of the ’59 Chevrolet lent themselves very nicely to a psychedelic paint treatment! I wouldn’t want to be on ‘shrooms or anything else when it rolled by! LOL
Cool camino…!! Great pics.
Thanks!
That’s another great analogy Joe. I very much agree about keeping it simple in photo “processing” and also about this car. I donno…it just looks off to me. I wouldn’t have figured out the Mercury connection, but once it’s pointed out, I can’t unsee it. And it looks weird to me.
Jeff, I think I remember my first glance at this ‘Camino, appreciating it, and then a quick glance back to see what looked slightly different about it. Like I mentioned in the essay, I do like the Mercury grille on it, but it’s the headlight spacing that I’m not one hundred percent grooving on. But that’s just the look of the 1960 Mercury and not specific to this particular vehicle to me.
It is interesting that the customizer, presumably many years ago as Jason surmises above, used the Merc front grill. And it does look very well integrated.
But looking closely at that picture, and you can see four little holes below the “V” (for V8(s) of the time) and imagine the missing letters… “F-O-R-D”… Perhaps this guy was trying to create a el-Ranchero-Camino, and the letters fell off over time. There seems to be any absence of a Chevy Bowtie as well.
The first time I ever saw one of these of this generation was years ago at an auto show in Baltimore. It was a 1960. I was younger than now and asked the owner if he had customized a ’60 Chevy wagon into an el-Camino and he said no, that they came that way in 1960. Then he said that there was even a 1959 model. At the time I had no idea, thinking that these started when the Chevelle came along. Of course I was born in ’60 and only obtained identifying knowledge of the older Chevys before then from my Dad. He as at the show with me that day and joked with the guy that I was a 1960 model.
Great to hear you will be featuring these newly found old pictures going into 2026, Joe! Looking forward to it and your musings!
Never examined one close up, but my Guess is that the “four holes” you see are where the Chevrolet” badge once lived. They likely had 4 lugs on the emblem that went through those holes.
Just a guess of course, but it makes sense when you look at a pic with the Chevrolet Emblem.
“They came that way.” Classic. I would take a pool among people my age who had originally thought, as kids, that an El Camino had been a wagon with the back lopped off, and I’d bet the number would be significant.
The El-Ranchero-Camino thing you mentioned reminds me of that Chevy-powered Fox-body Mustang I had featured here long ago.
And thanks RE: the good words. These pictures were actually from last month, but I’ve already selected some pictures originally taken back in 2011 for one feature.
OMG!!! That was your post?!?! I remember that Chevy Mustang! IIRC, that car was maroon.
I actually thought of it as I was typing “el-Ranchero-Camino”… LOL.
There is a white ’59 Chevy wagon that has been seen around Redondo Beach for years with the same grill transplant.
That’s interesting. That makes me wonder if there had been some kit for the ’59 that had been advertised. Maybe both owners had known the same customizer. This El Camino had Ohio plates. Maybe both vehicles had been transplants from the same area?
Perhaps a ’59 Chevy with a ’60 Merc grille swap was featured in a hotrod/custom magazine at some point in the era, inspiring a few copycats?
The El Camino is very nice, and always your writing and your thoughts are a welcoming way to start a Tuesday. But the highlight (or distraction) for me was the “Illussion of Beauty” salon adjacent to the Self Service Dog Wash.
Thanks, Dman. And yes – the spelling of “illussion” is like the use of “irregardless”. But no one’s perfect, self included.
I didn’t recognize the grille/headlights as being from the ’60 Merc either. That car I can never quite remember how it looks, an odd amalgam of ’60s-look front end and proportions and ’50s greenhouse. I keep forgetting it didn’t share a body with the new-for-1960 Fords and had to wait another year.
There was someone who frequented the gym/pool I go to with a red 1960 El Camino I wish I’d photographed. It had a wood-slat bed liner I didn’t know until recently came from the factory. I like the ’60 Chevys better than the ’59s, with their more modern grille treatment and more angular rear styling that takes some of the weirdness out of the bat wings while still looking a bit outrageous. And unlike the back of the ’59s that could have been any car – any weird car anyway – the back of the ’60 is unmistakably Chevy. The ’60 Chevrolets somehow bucked the trend of GM toning down the side trim of their big cars, instead adding those chrome jet planes, which somehow look alright.
The paradox of digital photography (and audio/video recordings) is that while they theoretically it can last forever without deterioration, in practice they often wind up on obsolete data formats on obsolete media, or even almost current media with a shelf life (public service message: back up anything you have on CD-RWs or rewriteable DVDs; some of my are already unreadable), or just lost (has anyone not lost a micro-SD card?). Keeping your digital photos and recordings IRL depends on copying all your old floppies/hard drives/optical discs/video tapes/USB drives/SD cards/phone storage to your current devices whenever you get something new, or even before you do.
I also have had a string of Canon PowerShots, my current one a 310 HS which was one of the fullest-featured pocket-sized digital cameras before smartphone cameras caused their sales to dwindle, resulting in fewer good ones still being made (larger mirrorless interchangeable-lens cams and DSLRs continue to get better though). I also keep my film camera exercised, a Nikon 35Ti that makes every other camera I’ve owned before or since feel like a toy.
I had temporarily forgotten about the chrome jet plane-things on the side of the 1960 Chevy, but yes – I can see them in my mind’s eye. I do like the ’60 on its own merits.
I’ve recently started using my old Canon PowerShot A495 again as portable backup when I don’t feel like (or can’t) take my big(ger) SLR with me. I’m always so pleasantly surprised with its picture quality. It really is a great, little camera.
The design is busy, with many details that lead to a less-than-cohesive design, but I do prefer the first gen El Camino to the same period Ranchero, especially in the front view.
I do wonder who actually bought a vehicle such as this – the original Ranchero was listed as part of the truck line of Ford and was targeted at ranchers, farmers and generally “country” types but did these vehicles also attract city dwellers?
That’s a great idea to think about. What was the original target market for this type of vehicle in the U.S.? Looking at period factory brochures, I would be me led to think it was rural types, but I’m sure most might prefer a conventional truck. I also can’t imagine these would be tricks of choice for city dwellers. Not in Chicago city limits, anyway.
the Merc grille was a common customization back in the day. The AMT model kit of fhe El Camino included the Merc grille
This is good to know! This tracks with what Nikita mentioned above. I wonder why this was or how this became a thing.
I’m guessing it came about because the ’60 Mercury headlights and grille slotted nicely in place of the original ’59 Chevy equipment with minimal alterations required.
The late 50s/early 60s were notable because quad headlights had just been introduced, and manufacturers were experimenting with different layouts — side by side and closely spaced (which won out in the long run); wider spacing as in the ’60 Mercury and ’60 Olds; putting the parking lights between the headlights as on the ’59 Olds; diagonal placement as on the ’59 Buick, ’61-62 Chrysler, and ’62-63 Dodge; and of course the stacked placement of the ’63-67 Pontiacs (and others).
What a great looking car, The Mercury grille looks quite at home here, love the period custom look of this, The profile shot with the One Way Except Bikes sign is poster on the wall worthy.
Love El Caminos and Rancheros, they had all the style that the Aussie utes that I’m used to, lacked, due to the more practical reasons for the Australian utes existing.
The US ütes” were created with more freedom for some style to go with the practicality.
Thank you so much! I’ll say, though, that the utes from your part of of the world are fascinating to me for some of the same reasons you cited about our examples. I’m thinking of various Falcon utes I’ve read about here over the years as I’m typing this – great looking vehicles.
Your right Joseph, for some reason I forgot about the Falcons of the 70s.