Chevrolet introduces the El Camino
On October 16 1958 Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino.Inspired by the Ford Ranchero which had already been on the market for two years the El Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body with the same cats eye taillights and dramatic rear fins.It was ads trilled the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load It rides and handles like a convertible Chevy said yet hauls and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels.Fords Ranchero was the first car-truck sold in the United States but it was not a new idea.
Since the 1930s Australian farmers had been driving what they called utesshort for coup utilityall around the outback.Legend has it that a farmers wife from rural Victoria had written a letter to Ford Australia asking the company to build a car that could carry her to church on Sundays and her husbands pigs to market on Mondays.In response Ford engineer Lewis Brandt designed a low-slung sedan-based vehicle that was a ritzy passenger car in the front with wind-up windows and comfortable seats and a rough-and-tumble pickup in back.
The ute was a huge hit eventually virtually every company that sold cars Down Under made its own version.In the United States however ute-type vehicles were slower to catch on.Though the Ranchero was a steady seller the first incarnation of the El Camino was not and Chevy discontinued it after just two years.In 1964 the company introduced a new version this one built on the brawnier Chevelle platform.
In 1968 the more powerful SS engine made the El Camino into one of the iconic muscle cars of the late 1960s and 1970s.In 1987 Chevrolet dropped the El Camino from its lineup for good.Today the car is a cult classic.
