But with the flat roof of its cab held up by narrow pillars, the El Camino offered a lovely profile that conjures up a vintage powerboat. And the gull-winged rear end was gaudy as well. There was nothing simple about the '59 Chevy front end, bedecked as it was with a full-width grille, quad headlights and chrome-surrounded nostrils.
Perhaps overly sensitive about price, Chevrolet product planners trimmed the new Camino out in Biscayne (bottom of the line) trim, but the result was still exceptionally attractive. The Chevrolet El Camino of 1959 was based on the '59 Chevrolet passenger-car chassis with a truncated but very attractive greenhouse followed by a big pickup truck bed. In this case, page two was basically a page from Ford playbook. When it realized that Ford, indeed, had a better idea with its car-based Ranchero, it didn't think twice about quickly phasing out the Cameo and moving on to page two. One thing about General Motors (and the entire American auto industry of the era, for that matter), in those days it could turn on a dime. It not only rode better, as you would expect from a car-based vehicle, it was also significantly cheaper than the Chevrolet. They christened the resulting vehicle the Ranchero, and when it debuted in the 1957 model year, it quickly began to outsell the Cameo Carrier by a wide margin. Instead of trying to add car-like features to a truck chassis, they decided to take a car chassis - in this case the full-size Ford Ranch Wagon - and fit it with a pickup truck bed directly behind the front bench seat. Of course, the Cameo could also be equipped with Chevy's all-new, high-compression small-block V-8 engine, which turned the truck into a bit of a hot rod.Īs Chevrolet hit the market with its Cameo Carrier, the men at Ford were following a nearly parallel path to develop their own personal-use pickup truck, but they approached the exercise from a different angle. It offered plenty of chrome trim, a two-tone paint job and a wealth of car-like options including power steering, power brakes and an automatic transmission. The Cameo was no plain-jane with rubber mats and painted bumpers. Compared to the Chevrolet passenger cars of that year, the Cameo was a mere footnote, but it pointed the way toward a new type of highly styled, well-equipped pickup that would be acceptable as a personal car. In late 1954, Chevrolet launched its landmark 1955 model-year line that included the not only the classic sedan, hardtop, and coupe, but also a flashy new pickup dubbed the Cameo Carrier. As usual, the Chevrolet-Ford rivalry got things going. The vast middle class simply didn't drive trucks they drove passenger cars.īut in the 1950s all that began to change, though the change came with glacier-like slowness. Trucks were strictly commercial vehicles, so anyone who employed one for "personal use" was typing himself as a tradesman or a farmer.
These days, when half of the light vehicles sold are "trucks" and when the vehicle of choice in the suburbs is a sport utility, it is difficult to comprehend that 50 years ago there was a stigma to driving a truck. Willys, Hudson, and Studebaker were among the American manufacturers who offered car-based pickup trucks direct from the factory during those years, and pickup and panel truck conversions of passenger cars done by aftermarket body-builders were widely available as well. Since virtually every vehicle on the road in those days used separate body-on-frame construction, it was a fairly simple task to build truck-like bodies and plop them on car chassis. Pickups and panel trucks based on car platforms were relatively common in the 1920s and 1930s. After getting its second chance, it spawned a line that would extend for 25 years. Out that the '59 Camino was more an artistic success than a commercial triumph, but that does not diminish the importance of the The concept of a highly styled,Ĭivilized pickup truck was certainly not new when the El Camino was introduced to the public in the 1959 model year, and it turned Sometimes even the best ideas need a second chance, and so it was with the Chevrolet El Camino. Stutz added the 1959 Chevrolet El Camino model to his line. In 1914, after a stirring string of auto racing victories, Henry C.
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