1976 Chevrolet El Camino Coupe 350 3 Speed Automatic Classic Vintage Collector

Description

Small pickups that were easy to drive had been around for quite a while. Station wagon-based pickups came next, but tended to be pretty basic. By 1976, the El Camino had built a vehicle with the best of both worlds. Luxury features transferred in from the high-end cars of the time, and chassis design that offered a nice ride with substantial hauling capability at the same time. This car has all that, then dresses it in gorgeous gloss black paint... and adds a few engine mods that give it a mean little rumble at idle. Check it out. The silhouette of this car is long and lean and just begs to be painted black. The hood and the bed rails slope gently toward the cab which has a windshield that rakes back on a steep angle and is matched by the angle the sail panel cuts as it blends from the back window onto the bed rails. Make that look even lower and leaner by adding an SS stripe that wraps around from one front fender to the other, and you have one sweet looking car,... or truck,... or SUV. Except that term wasn't being used yet. The front end is dressed up with a chrome grill of vertical bars flanked by rectangular quad headlights and underlined by a sharp looking bumper. On the side, add a couple body colored sport mirrors, and at the rear add a big SS to the stripe along with El Camino in script underlined by another chrome bumper. Spray the bed with Line-X and you have one sweet looking ride. Open the door and you will find an interior out of a high-end car. The door panel has a smooth upper with styled squares in the center edged by chrome piping and a comfortable armrest for cruising. A split bench seat with a fold down center armrest is comfortable and everything is nicely covered in black vinyl. There are a few signs that this ride has a bit of attitude under the hood with a beefy Grant GT steering wheel and a column mounted tach, along with a T-handle shifter for the automatic transmission mounted in the floor. The stock dash is neat and clean with supplemental Sunpro gauges mounted underneath to help keep track of water temp, oil pressure and voltage. There is an AM/FM cassette player for your listening pleasure and the updated R134 A/C blows nice and cold. GM did some quality soundproofing by adding a double panel roof along with a nice headliner, and good-looking carpeting ties it all together. Pop the hood and you will find a healthy 350 cubic inch engine that is nicely dressed out sitting in a neat and clean engine bay. A black air filter housing looks great with a bowtie and Chevrolet in red held down by a red bowtie wingnut. That sits on top of an Edelbrock 4-barrel carb and intake manifold. Black valve covers match the air filter with the same red bowtie and Chevrolet in script and look good sitting just over the long tube headers winding their way out the bottom. The overall look of the engine bay is bad to the bone. Flowmaster mufflers along with the headers give the car a healthy rumble at idle. Power front disc brakes assure good braking ability and GM chassis engineers equipped the car with specially matched spring rates for a good ride without sacrificing payload and added beefy sway bars to assure good handling. The rubber meets the road through 255/60R15 BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires all around mounted on Rally wheels. Good looking, comfortable, capable. What are you waiting for? Come on down and check out this sweet ride.