Finding Rough Start candidate vehicles is still a difficult task. How do you find a vehicle that is used, more or less running and driving, that is interesting and can be cool with little to no work immediately? Everybody and their mother is looking at their older vehicles and somehow have collectively come to the conclusion that a market adjustment was needed. Now we have a “Chrome Tax”: if it has chrome bumpers, it’s old and therefore, must be collectible and therefore valuable. Forget some of the usual suspects…did you think you’d ever see the day where what remains of a 1979 Chevy Caprice sedan that needed divine intervention to be worthy would be selling for seven grand?
That’s why finding this 1974 Chevrolet El Camino was like finding an oasis in the desert right about the time the vultures started to appear in the sky. While many hate the 1970s A-bodies for the usual reasons (weak “muscle”, oversized bumpers, land barges, Brougham Epoch, etc.) you really need to drive one. The El Camino, specifically, should be on your list. Think of it as “Squarebody Light”: the engine bay is huge, the bed space is plentiful, and a good, snotty Chevelle-based machine is always a riot. A bit of bodywork on this Arizona-sourced example and a new re-shoot of black paint and we’d rock the hell out of this one, swivel buckets and all. You even get a floor shift in this car. Doll it up to be a proper 1970s street machine or rock the color-and-primer “My Name Is Earl” look if you so insist. But for $6,000, we’d let Maaco put a fresh coat over the ute, make sure that the 350 underhood isn’t bleeding fluids, and drive the Cragars off of this sucker.
Facebook Marketplace link: 1974 Chevrolet El Camino
