For Fan Car Friday this week we bring you Kip & Gracie and their gorgeous ’86 Chevy El Camino.  Fan Car Friday is a segment where we want to share with the world the automobiles that our fans have. We have absolutely no affiliation/relationship with the cars, the build or the owners. This post was made with written consent from the owner.

“Purchased this car from my Father In Law in 2012. His last El Camino before he passed away. Was an all original Conquista Model with 93,000 miles with one repaint.
Put in on the road in 2013 as a daily commuter.

Drove it as original until 2014. Original 305 Engine was using oil and 200C Transmission was getting weak.

Installed a rebuilt Vortec 350 with Ramjet Truck Cam, rebuilt Quadrajet Carb and a 700R4 Trans built for towing. Still has original 2:41 Posi differential. Can cruise 70 MPH at 1500 RPM and 90 MPH at 2000 RPM. Averages 17 MPG on Daily Commute.

Brake upgrade, exhaust upgrade, cooling system upgrade, suspension upgrade.
200 watt stereo with sub.

I am 6′-5” Tall, so I changed bench seat to Firebird bucket seats and added a custom console.

Still needs a few things done, but a very comfortable, very dependable daily driver.

The Elco was so named by my son-in-law.

It was the last of six El Caminos that that my father-in-law owned in his lifetime. When it had about 80,000 miles my father-in-law had a front end collision with it and because of the age and the cost to repair the insurance company totaled it. After looking it over there appeared to be no frame damage so I suggested that he buy it back from the insurance company and I offered to help him repair it. We purchased a donor car for parts and I helped him replace all of the damaged sheet metal and parts. When we were repairing the collision damage, extra time was spent painting the back side of the fenders, the hood and other hidden body components to preserve the car as much as possible. A friend of mine; Arlis Simpson who owns Simpson’s Body Shop in Lumberton, NC applied the the base coat, clear coat paint after the parts were replaced and the car was prepped for paint. Arlis is a master with paint and does beautiful work.

During the time it was being repaired I told my father-in-law that if he ever wanted to sell the car that I was interested in buying it. My father-in-law drove the car a couple years after it was repaired then offered it to me.

I was never a real fan of the El Caminos until I got into the project to repair the car and saw how they were built. It is the last of the full frame midsize cars sharing its frame, floor pan and running gear with the Monte Carlo, the Pontiac Grand Prix, the Buick Regal and the Olds Cutlass. I saw it is a great platform to build on for a small block Chevy hot rod.

After I acquired it, I drove it a couple of years and until it came time to rebuild the engine and transmission, it was only fitting that the original, low powered 305 engine be upgraded to a much stronger cast iron Vortec 350. The original 200C transmission was replaced with a very strongly built 700R4 for the added overdrive. This engine and transmission combination has provided over 5 years of dependable daily driving, trouble free. This combination makes it fairly economical to use as a daily driver and also makes it tempting to play with. It will give the Mustangs and Camaros some pretty stiff competition at the traffic lights. Stainless steel headers, true dual stainless steel exhaust and stainless Flow Master 52 mufflers give it a nice deep rumble. To be emissions compliant we included a pair of the stainless steel Magnaflow high flow cats.

When driving under 70 mph, the overdrive lock up converter is seldom engaged because the engine rpms are just too low to use it. But for interstate driving, you can cruise at 70 to 80 mph at under 1900 rpm indefinitely and average over 20 mpg. With the overdrive transmission and the original 2.41:1 posi-differential there is no limit to the top end speed. The drive train combination will literally outrun what the body is aerodynamically designed for. Don’t ask me how I know this because I am not telling!

My son-in-law was never a fan of the carbureted engines until the Elco. Being from the younger generation, he thought that to get performance you had to have fuel injection and tubo-chargers. And they do give optimal performance. But once he saw how well a Quadrajet could be tuned to perform on a well built small block Chevy, he said; “Pops it’s insane how quickly the Elco will get you to 70 mph!” He now runs a Quadrajet on his small block 355 in his old 1980 Chevy Scottsdale Pickup. I can sometimes hear that Quadrajet moaning on the road past the house as he is leaving after a visit.

And to top it off, my wife loves the Elco! It was her dad’s last one and needless to say, even though we have had offers, she will never let it leave the family!“

Chevrolet El Camino is a coupé utility vehicle that was produced by Chevrolet between 1959–60 and 1964–1987. Unlike a pickup truck, the El Camino was adapted from a two-door station wagon platform that integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body.

Introduced in the 1959 model year in response to the success of the Ford Ranchero coupé utility, its first run lasted only two years. Production resumed for the 1964–1977 model years based on the Chevelle platform, and continued for the 1978–1987 model years based on the GM G-body platform.

Although based on corresponding General Motors car lines, the vehicle is classified and titled in North America as an SUV. GMC’s badge engineered El Camino variant, the Sprint, was introduced for the 1971 model year. Renamed Caballero in 1978, it was also produced through the 1987 model year.

GM shifted El Camino production to Mexico, and the new fuel-injected 4.3 L V6 became the base engine through 1987. El Camino production ended quietly in late 1987. Some model year 1987’s (420 El Caminos and 325 GMC Caballeros) are listed as new car retail deliveries in calendar year 1988 based on their date of first retail sale. Speculation in online forums indicates 3GCCW80H2HS915586 “may” be the final vehicle. The GM Media Archive/Heritage Center confirmed that no MY 1988 El Caminos or Caballeros were produced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_El_Camino

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