1959 Chevrolet El Camino

1959 El Camino Finished in Raven Black with custom Black & Red leather and hound’s-tooth Interior. It is powered with by a 327 V-8 and 4 BBl. Carb. with mild cam. 4 wheel Power Disk Brakes. Power Steering. Power windows and vents. Vintage ice cold Air. Vintage Push button radio. Vintage Ranger mirror with spotlight. All original body panels, California / Georgia car. Built in Van Nuys, California The exterior finish is Concours show quality. The bed and tailgate are finished to the same exacting show quality as the exterior of the vehicle. The interior is completely one off custom. Only the finest material and hides we used to create the outstanding show quality interior. $89,500 History The El Camino was introduced for the 1959 model year at the suggestion of Harley Earl, two years after the Ranchero. Fords introduction of the 1957 Ranchero established a new market segment in the U.S. market of an automobile platform based coupé utility. So in 1959, Chevrolet responded with the El Camino to compete with Ford's full-sized Ranchero. The original El Camino and Ranchero would compete directly only in the 1959 model year. Like the Ranchero, it was based on an existing and modified platform, the Brookwood two-door station wagon, itself based on the completely redesigned, longer, lower and wider full-sized Chevrolet. Highly stylized, it initially sold 50% more briskly than the more conservative Ranchero, some 22,000 to 14,000. The El Camino was available with any full-sized Chevy drivetrain. It came in a single trim level, its exterior using the Bel-Air's and interior of a low-end Biscayne. Its chassis featured Chevrolet's "Safety-Girder" X-frame design and a full-coil suspension. It was promoted as the first Chevrolet pickup built with a steel bed floor instead of wood. The floor was a corrugated sheet metal insert, secured with 26 recessed bolts. Concealed beneath it was the floor pan from the Brookwood two-door wagon, complete with foot wells. Among the performance engines offered were a 283-cid Turbo-jet V8 with two- or four-barrel carburetion, several Turbo-Thrust 348-cid V8s with four-barrel or triple two-barrel carburetors producing 335 bhp (250 kW; 340 PS), and 250- and 290-bhp 283-cube Ramjet Fuel Injection V8s. Hot Rod Magazine conducted a test of an El Camino equipped with the hottest powertrain combination available in early 1959—a 315 bhp (235 kW; 319 PS), triple-carb, solid-lifter 348 V8 mated to a four-speed. Staff testers clocked 0-60 mph times of around seven seconds, estimated top speed at 130 mph (210 km/h), and predicted 14-second/100-mph quarter-mile performance with a rear-axle ratio suitable for drag racing installed. A total of 22,246 El Caminos were produced for 1959.