Like any good blogger I have a news catcher that sends me alerts when stories crop up about my topic of choice, “El Camino.” Most stories are about our California road, but sometimes other subjects find my inbox, like this: starting Monday, June 20 a stretch of El Camino Real is going to be closed by construction crews for four months in the Bay Area. That’s the Galveston Bay Area. In Houston, TX. Sucks for them.
Occasionally I catch stories about the famed Chevrolet El Camino car/truck hybrid, usually sourced from car news and gossip site Jalopnik.com, and they’re typically pretty entertaining. Jalopnik loves them some ‘Mino and it shows. This week they posted an ad for a modified El Camino for sale in Detroit on Craig’s List, and it leaves me speechless. The owner stretched the truck bed, added another rear axle, and made various other cosmetic “enhancements.” Wow. Quite possibly the ugliest vehicle I have ever seen. Plus, he got the Ackermann geometry all wrong. I mean, geez.
I’m being unnecessarily mean. It may not look like much but I acknowledge it’s quite a feat of automotive engineering and craftsmanship and the owner claims it runs great, so kudos for that.
Kudos also to Jalopnik for dropping some real El Camino science in their writeup:
El Camino Real, or the Royal Road, refers to the 600-mile long padre path spanning San Diego to San Francisco, and interconnecting the California Missions. The builder of today’s Chevy El Camino with seis ruedas was obviously on a mission – a mission to make this the most El Camino-ist El Camino in the whole PBR-drinkin’ world.
True that.
[Source: Jalopnik]