Why the First El Camino Was Secretly a Station Wagon

In December 1994, Newsweek printed Bill Clinton's memory of an El Camino he'd owned: "It was a real sort of Southern deal," he said. "I had AstroTurf in the back." Fake grass made sense, because the first El Camino was built from Chevy's 1959 Brookwood station wagon, with a ribbed steel floor bolted over the wagon's own back-seat foot wells, a car X-frame and soft coil springs at every wheel. Empty it rode like a Chevy car, but its basic payload rating was just 650 pounds, against about 1,200 for the Ford Ranchero that inspired it. We follow it from the 1959 batwing and its exit after just two years, to the Chevelle-based return in 1964, the 396 and the LS6 454, the 1973 Colonnade peak, the downsized 1978 version and the last one in 1987, to settle one question: car or truck? CHAPTERS: 0:00 Car or truck? The wagon under the bed 0:45 Bill Clinton's AstroTurf El Camino 1:15 How a normal pickup was built 3:12 Built from the Brookwood wagon 3:54 Foot wells under the bed 5:15 Why GM liked the low floor 6:43 How it rode, empty and loaded 7:57 1960 and the gap 8:17 The 348 V8 and the tri-power 10:50 The El Camino comes back on the Chevelle 12:11 A longer bed in a smaller car 13:23 1966: the 396 big-block 14:56 The SS396 and the L78 16:17 The 1970 SS396 that wasn't a 396 17:32 1973: bigger and heavier 18:48 Slower, yet buyers came 19:07 1978-87: downsized 21:00 Why its job got harder 22:11 The Holden utes and the G8 ST #ElCamino #Chevrolet #ChevyElCamino #FordRanchero #ClassicCars #ClassicTrucks #CarHistory #Documentary