Car Stuff: Random Sighting #12

This is a good one, and I've had it in the queue for a couple of months. It belongs to a friend of a friend, who has taken it over from his father. It has led a relatively pampered existence, and it shows.

It's a Chevrolet El Camino, the car-based pickup that was pretty popular for a while in the 1970s. The origin of the vehicle dates back to 1959 when it was introduced as a reaction to Ford's Ranchero, which first appeared for 1957. The original El Camino went away after just two model years, but was reestablished on the General Motors midsize platform along with the introduction of the 1964 intermediate models. It stayed in production through 1987. (The Ranchero didn't have any production gaps but was moved to the new compact Falcon for 1960, then aligned with the El Camino on Ford's midsize platform in 1966, where it remained until production ended in 1979.)

I neglected to ask the exact year of this car, but the front-end design puts it at '82 or later. It's highly optioned (relative to how people typically purchased cars at the time) with features like power windows and door locks, those chromed tiedown rails, and a small V-8 that was the largest available engine at the time. But it also has the ritzy Conquista trim package, which included the two-tone paint with chrome moldings separating the colors, whitewall tires, and wire wheel covers.

Look at that: an interior that isn't beige or tan or gray or black. This is one of my big peeves about how cars are built now; of course, it's about money—those colors (especially black) go with the widest variety of exterior paint colors. But it used to be that if you wanted a blue car, you could get a matching blue interior, and I miss that. Here and there carmakers are starting to offer choices like blue or red for the seats and maybe inserts on the door panels (particularly if leather is offered), but everything else is still black. You have to spend serious money now, like upwards of $100K, to get real color choices.

And then there's the bed cap, a practical option if you haul stuff frequently enough to have to contend with bad weather. This car came up from North Carolina, so it may have been to protect the contents from rain more than anything else. Personally I'd prefer the car without the cap, but it's pretty nicely integrated into the overall design. It's great to see this somewhat uncommon young vintage car on the road and being enjoyed.