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.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Glad GM skipped those early 1960 years of production. Wouldn’t have wanted to imagine the Chevy II used as the ElCamino. The Falcon Ranchero ended up pretty slick however, so maybe a Chevy II ElCamino could have been done as well?
The story has been that Chevy decided to get back into the car truck b’ness to stay competitive with the Falcon Ranchero and then waited for the Chevelle instead of launching a Chevy II El Camino sooner.
Humber Super Snipes don’t get mentioned enough despite having an awesome name. A name they don’t live up to in my opinion. And let’s just pretend that the Sunbeam Rapier never existed.
Humber Super snipe pickups havent mentioned on this site EVER, but they were built, pretty much a ute with 5 ton Commer truck powertrain. very rare.
Aussie utes were not really designed for the torture some of then went thru, some even survived but Aussie is littered with examples that didnt, it was very late in the career of utes that loading and towing weight regs came out and began being enforced,
I like these early Elkys .
I think most Americans prefer a light duty pickup truck , I certainly do as I mostly haul a single Motocycle in the bed, ofttimes out of state and back .
Plus light loads such as deposit bottles & cans I save for my elder brother .
-Nate
I don’t believe any Chevelle 2 door wagons were built for ’66 and ’67, I think they may have been planned at one point but the idea was dropped. Perhaps by ’66 the El Camino was selling well enough there was no need to amortize the quarter panels! I have a friend that is something of an expert on 60’s era Chevy wagons and he says no 2 doors after ’65, though people have been looking for them for years.
Of course somebody actually built one, plus any excuse to type the name Humber Super Snipe.
“…the El Camino sat on a totally ordinary Chevelle chassis except for air-adjustable shocks…”
There are a variety of “frames” for the GM “A” bodies. In ’68, there were two wheelbases and two versions of each wheelbase. The major difference is that the convertibles, and the El Camino, got frames that were “boxed”. This is a significant strength upgrade over the more-common “C” channel frame, enclosed on only three sides.
The convertibles used the shorter wheelbase (112 inches) version along with the coupe, but unlike the coupe, the ‘vert got the extra support from enclosing the otherwise-open side of the “C” channel. The El Camino used the longer-wheelbase (116 inches) version that would have been used on the sedans and station-wagons…but even the wagons didn’t get the “boxed” frame that the ‘Camino did.
For the record, the “boxed” frame is still surprisingly flexible. The open-sided “C” channel frame would be outright scary without the body attached. The body is WAY stiffer than the frame. It’s no exaggeration to say that the body supports the frame, not the other way around. I found this out when I replaced the wiped-out original rubber body-to-frame cushions with fresh Polyurethane mounts and properly-torqued bolts on my ’68 ‘Camino. With the body separated from the frame, the frame can be distorted with hand-pressure.
“…as long as the lightly-loaded tires can be made to connect to the pavement adequately.”
As for the common myth that the El Camino rear tires are more lightly-loaded than the coupe or sedan, I promise that a tailgate weighs more than the foam cushions of the car’s rear seat. That said…the common practice of jacking-up the rear suspension to make room for bigger/wider tires screws-up the rear-axle control-arm geometry leading to the dreaded “wheel hop”.
Why did they not call It the ChevelleCamino? (Chev-El-Camino?/ ChevelCamino, whatever).. spelling aside, it was right there.