Well technically its a 69 Chevy truck...right?

[Critter]

I did something today that I am pretty proud of, here’s a little story for everyone. In 1971 when my father returned home from the Army, he had a brand new 71 El Camino waiting on him at my grandparents house. Dad had been sending money home and told my Grandpa exactly what he wanted. Grandpa ordered it, picked it up, and had it sitting in the front yard when Dad’s plane landed. Anyway, it was the first new vehicle my dad had ever bought and he loved that car (truck???). He started dating my mom while he owned it and they went on every date in it. Somewhere around getting married, he sold the Elky and has been driving a bare bones Chevy work truck ever since. (Unfortunately, his friend that bought it ran through a church and totaled it after losing control from a stoplight burn out.) Jump forward a few years. He taught me how to work on cars and when I was around 15 he helped me buy my first 68 Chevy SWB stepside. I did a lot of work on it with his physical and financial help. Later on he put me through college and all that good stuff. He never outright “gave” vehicles to me, but through me working for him and birthday presents and what not, I always seemed to have pretty nice toys. If nothing else he was always open to loaning me money for whatever I decided I needed that day of the week.

Over the last few years since I have been on my own I have been thinking about how I would like to give a little back. He is always talking about wanting another old car or truck to play around with beings as he is trying to retire (he’s self employed and as a lot of you know its hard to retire from that). He also mentions about once a month that he wishes he had another El Camino but never gets around to finding one.

Well, my Dads 59th birthday is Feb 24th and I thought I would get him a little surprise. He is a workaholic that never takes time for himself so I figured I would force him to. Fellow board member Jtrux has a friend who had a 69 El Camino sitting in a garage that was for sale. I talked to him a little and turns out it was his father-in-law’s who had passed away a few years ago. The father-in-law had owned the car since 69 and it spent much of its life in a garage. It was driven into the garage and turned off when the man passed away and has basically been in there since the mid 90’s. I looked it over a couple times, and the current owner and me came to an agreement on price. Which brings us up to today. Me, Jtrux, and the current owner go over to excavate the old Elky from its dusty tomb. The car has a 300hp 350, 4 barrel carb, TH350 trans, and A/C. From what I found this is the highest horsepower small block offered in a 69 Elky. The big block SS was the only higher option. Actually, this is more HP than my fathers 71 350 had! Other than a few bondo spots and a bad paint job (the older gentleman tapped a few parking lot poles in his later years) it seams to be in pretty good shape. 144,000 original miles, no rust that I can find, complete interior, and virtually untouched under the hood (it does have an HEI conversion which I was happy to find). At any rate, I hope to do the basics over the next few weeks…clean the fuel tank/lines, sparkplugs/cap/rotor, fuel and air filters, oil change, etc. Basically I want to clean it up and get it where it can be driven around the block and surprise my Dad for his Birthday. We can do the rest of the work over time. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share. By the way, if anyone has any additional info on this year model feel free to chime in.