The 1959 Chevrolet El Camino combined dramatically finned styling with half-ton pickup utility
Unlike a standard pickup truck, the El Camino was adapted from the two-door Chevrolet Brookwood two-door wagon. (Photos courtesy of GM archives)
The original Chevrolet El Camino introduced for 1959 combined the dramatically finned styling of that period’s Chevrolet cars with half-ton pickup utility.
The El Camino as a passenger-car pickup was intended to answer the success of the Ford Ranchero coupé utility. The Chevrolet variant was based on the B-body Biscayne wagon but lasted only two years.
Production resumed for the 1964-1977 model years based on the Chevelle platform. Then, it continued for the 1978-1987 model years based on the GM G-body platform for midsized, long-wheelbase rear-wheel-drive cars. Examples of G-body cars are the 1969-1972 Pontiac Grand Prix and 1970-1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
The Personal-Car Pickup
Unlike a standard pickup truck, the El Camino was adapted from the two-door Chevrolet station wagon platform and integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body, according to its page in Wikipedia.
The excitement of the El Camino’s debut was short-lived. After 1960, the passenger-car pickup went on a three-year hiatus.
Chevrolet revived the “personal pickup” concept for 1964, with a new version based on that year’s new midsize Chevrolet Chevelle.
During the ‘muscle car’ era that followed, El Camino buyers could order their truck with a Chevrolet high-performance big-block V-8 powertrain, creating a sport pickup that could “haul” in more ways than one. By 1968, a complete Super Sport package was available.
The Chevelle El Camino was produced through two more styling generations (1968-1972 and 1973-1977).
For 1978, the El Camino was moved to that year’s new, smaller Malibu platform. The final El Caminos were 1987 models.
The GMC truck division also had its badge-engineered El Camino variant, called the Sprint. It was introduced for the 1971 model year. Renamed Caballero in 1978, it was also produced through the 1987 model year.
The 1959 El Camino was aimed at the success of the Ford Ranchero, introduced in 1957.
Origin of the El Camino
The concept of a two-door pickup-like vehicle based on a passenger car began in the United States in the 1920s. The body style was known as a roadster utility, roadster pickup, or a light delivery model.
Ford Australia was the first company to produce a coupé utility. The idea for such a vehicle came from a 1932 letter from a farmer’s wife in Victoria, Australia. She asked for “a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays.”
Ford designer Lew Bandt developed a suitable solution, and the first coupé utility model was released in 1934.
General Motors’ Australian subsidiary Holden also produced a Chevrolet coupé utility in 1935. And Studebaker produced the Coupé Express from 1937 to 1939.
The body style did not reappear in the U.S. until the release of the 1957 Ford Ranchero.
