Sunday drive for a hunt

My friend found 1968 Chevrolet El Camino from Facebook for sale. The post was made in January of 2021. No Nettiauto.com, no Overdrive.fi listing, no Facebook marketplace post, just a persons personal page post. 

I contacted the person and we set up a date when I was supposed to go and take a look at it, which was a week ago, but I had back problems and couldn't sit or stand for long. So long drive was out of the question. Last Sunday I was feeling a lot better and I drove over 160 km to see this El Camino. My hopes weren't up that much since the asking price was kind of mid range, 12500€ and it was the wrong year, 1968. I kind of have set my mind into 1969 El Camino. But at least by checking out this El Camino, I don't have to second guess it in the future.

Weather was sunny and nice all the way there and back. Road were quite empty, not much of traffic, well it was a Sunday after all.

Navigator gave me a shortest path and at the end of the journey it directed me through old and narrow private road.  First, I thought that the address is just around the corner, but actually road took me through a small forest and to the back of this industrial lot. 

And there it was.

From the outside it was decent. It was shipped to the Finland few years ago. The title was dated 2016. 

As the  sale listing says, the engine is from 1995 Corvette and so are almost everything that is needed to make it work on the older car. Drivetrain, plastic fuel tank, electric gauges and while someone was doing that they added the Corvette's electric seats too. 

That gauge cluster is... well it is hideous. Butchered the stylish pod style gauges that were originally in the El Camino. Well, good point is, if you want to upgrade that old and analog gauges to electric, you're half way there. Just need to get the original or repro gauge cluster and then that Dakota Digital Dash that I thought about for my previous El Camino.

At least that was left from the butchery. Even though I doubt this was ever true SS, it's still a nice touch. 

There are few trim pieces missing in the front end, but nothing much. I suspect that this has been in accident since the drivers side fender in the front is a bit out of shape, but I can't be sure and it is nothing new that car that is over 50 years old has been one or two minor accidents in it's life time.

One nice touch is that fuel tank filler door is changed to round one. I quite like it. 

Overall, it's quite good shape, engine starts immediately and runs good and is responsive. Power steering is a bit tough, but it's from the Corvette also and is supposed to be a performance steering. Power brakes are really rough, but nothing to worry about. Paint is decent, no need to do that soon, unless you want it to be show quality, but before you get there, there are others things to address. 

The conclusion is that it might be worth the trouble, since the asking price ain't that far off from what you are buying. The problem for me is that it's 1968 and that dash. 

Should I get 5th Gen instead?

Last weekend I was having a BBQ and sauna with my childhood friends and we talked about my "obsession" over 3rd gen El Caminos. That lead me to think that I have always wanted a 5th gen El Camino, especially from 1982 to 1987 with the quad headlights. Those aren't that rare, but not as plenty as the first few years of 5th gen, 1978 to 1981.

I always fancied those later years 5th gen as my daily driver, the work horse if you will and then for the weekend drive a 3rd gen. Now I have a Volvo as my daily driver, without the party in the back, and I don't really need a three cars, right?

So there is the want to have one, but not the reason.

As the fuel prices keep on rising I have thought about getting an electric car as for my daily driver. Those are getting cheaper and cheaper to buy, but the lack of infrastructures for charging that electric car is non-existing in here where I live. And I can't charge at my apartment. At least not yet.

Then we talked, me mostly, about turning an El Camino into an electric El Camino. And I didn't know if there exist any readily made conversion kits, until I wrote this post. A few years ago when I first had this idea there weren't any conversion kits available and the electric cars were mostly for wealthier people, but nowadays the prices have fallen and there are plenty of electric cars available in every price range.

Now, this is still an idea and will be till that charging problem is figured out.

Damn. That 1970 is really, really sexy. Should I just buy 1970?

Damn. I really miss my 1970. A couple weeks ago I called the new owner and Kelly is doing fine. I was a little bit tipsy when I told him that if he ever thinks about selling it, he should call me first. But I don't think he is ever going to do that, since he has also fallen in love it.

So my quest for an El Camino continues, but which generation? Most likely 3rd, but there is this ticking thought back in my brain saying that 5th gen.

The search for the El Camino

 ...is about to begin. Well, actually has started as a market probe. To see what price ranges there are in Finland and US. One of my childhood friend has a connection in the west coast of the US and does scouting and recon gigs for clients. When we started talking about me getting an El Camino again, he suggested that he can scout the Craigslist in California and he can handle the whole transaction with his guy and the seller, so I only have to say no and yes, and when I say yes, then pay the man. His connection handles whole deal in the States and shipping and only thing I need to in here is to have the El Camino registered and taxed, which is around 50€. My 1970 was about 55€ over ten years ago.

I have set notification on local online car sales website called nettiauto.com and I geet once a week a list with new or if ad has been altered.

There are couple of the 3rd gen El Caminos for sale, but now what I am looking for. Well, maybe that 1969, but it doesn't have air conditioner. And it's... well, maybe not judging the colour scheme without seeing it in live. Maybe I should try to have a look on next weekend?

Then there is of course the craigslist. Which is pain to try to find, when you are outside the US. I understand that it's main purpose is to use as local sales listing, but there used to be a third party website that crawled all craigslist site and find what you are looking for from every state and town. 

The more I have thought about should it be 1969 or 1970, I am leaning on 1969. I like the aggressive nose and there aren't too many 1969 El Caminos in here too. Actually I could find out since our national car registery Traficom.fi has open data of all the cars that are on registery and is on-drive. 

Uh, oh, over 5 million lines of data. Too large for Google sheets. Oh well. I'll check on that later. 

But for few weeks I'm off location and I am not in hurry to get the El Camino.