1977 El Camino

With regards to the snakeskin or alcantara, Amazon have a nice range of curtains in good sizes and a choice of colours for not a lot of money

Somewhere on this forum or another forum or on Facebook, I stated - one year ago - that I would probably own my El Camino for exactly one year and then sell it again.

My thinking at the time was that I already felt kind of done with the car scene and I wanted to move on. I no longer woke up early on a weekend with a plan in mind to get under my car and fix or improve something. I didn't get the same buzz out of going to a meet or a car show as I once did. The thrill had gone for me.

But, I had always planned to own a big old yank and I knew that if I stopped before I'd done that, it would always nag away at me. So rather than ending where I felt I needed to end, I extended it out to include just one more car.

I must admit that I hoped a big yank might revive my interest and give me a new angle on an old hobby. To a certain extent it did. Maybe if Covid19 and Lockdown hadn't sucked the life out of the summer car season it might have set me off this Spring with a whole new zest for the car life and a schedule of adventures to enjoy in my big old yank.

Didn't happen. So my declining interest declined even further once I'd done some panel work and painting over the winter and improved a few mechanical things. There were a 100 improvements I could carried on making to the car during lockdown, but none of them were essential and I just didn't want to be bothered. I took it for a weekly drive and aside from that it has just sat there since March. I had just lost all love for the whole idea of it or anything else on four wheels. It had been coming for a long time anyway, and an El Camino was simply not enough to reverse that decline... not during a lockdown anyway.

So today... almost to the very day* I stated that I would probably only have it for one year, I sold it again and it drove away with its new owner to a new life in Essex, and I was not sad at all. If anything I was relieved.

Some people, when I bought it (like smoke_em who used to be on here but stopped posting a while ago) were keen to know what it was like to take the plunge and buy a big yank that is loved and loathed in equal measure, so as a parting post before I close my RR accounts down and wander off into obscurity, I thought I'd type up a quick review of what it's like to own a big yank for anyone out there who is 'yank-curious'.

At first it feels amazing. It burbles around and is so big and powerful it gives you a real buzz. That lasts for maybe two weeks. After two weeks, the sensory overstimulation gets normalised and you are largely just left with a car. A big, ridiculous, loud and obnoxious car, but it is just a car.

Everywhere you go, people want to see a burnout. You either have your window down and they shout "DO A BURNOUT" or "SEND IT" if they're a bit more On Fleek. If the window is up they do a funny hand jive fast spin motion to visually encourage you to do a burnout.

This gets tiring very quickly. So you have to just ignore them, otherwise you'll be leaning out of your window explaining why you aren't going to entertain them for free and at your own expense with some irresponsible driving in heavy traffic that will take £20 worth of tread off your tyres and put you at risk of grenading your diff eventually.

After a while, the car becomes so ordinary that it starts to feel a bit more like a burden than a joy. Especially when you have nowhere to go and nothing to do. They are big and powerful, but to be really honest that doesn't quite get the pulse racing like 'small and aggressive' does, despite the massive dollops of HP/torque.

In hindsight, although my interest was already waning I can say for certain I had a lot more fun with my Scimitar than with the El Camino. The Scimitar was a dog rough scrapper beyond any true salvation. It was so far gone visually that there was literally nothing to lose by having some fun with it and doing whatever I wanted. It ran really well eventually and was small and really nimble, not to mention pretty darn fast in certain circumstances, so I was able to take that out and thrash it to within an inch of its life and come back home smiling and refreshed. I felt more confident about smoking contenders in my shabby old Scim than I ever did in the ElCo. The Scim was an underdog. Nobody expected it to shriek away at the light covering their Beemer in road grit. Everybody expects that from a big V8 Snorter. So in way you can only lose. In a way you're just setting yourself up to be like those poor schlubs in that Youtube video who smoke a Honda in their muscle car and then bounce to a halt with their rear axle 20 yards behind them.

The ElCo, being so large, and not exactly designed for negotiating twisting country lanes at speed, was less fun to go on country jaunts in, despite being 4x the power of the Scim. It was a "shiny paint" car and whilst compromised through age related marks, it was not a goner visually like the Scimitar was. So the obligation was to at least upkeep its appearance as opposed to chopping bits off it on a whim and spraying it with rattle cans in a strong wind just for the hell of it. It was a car that needed to be washed and polished and boy do I hate having to do that.

So now that I've done the big yank and ticked it off my list I don't feel I'd necessarily ever want to do that again. I don't want to do another car at all at this point, but I have a feeling at the back of my cranium somewhere that if ever I do return to this rich and broad world of modified vehicles, I think it will be a tatty grot-rocket 100e with a raucous 4pot and a four speed box, lowered onto some nice fat wheels, and if necessary... very deliberately covered in whatever kind of artificial patina and rust is going to agitate the rivet counters.

I've been on RR in one from or another since around 2008 (<verified by one account, and might be earlier via another) and this place has been a really important part of my life for the entire time I've had an interest in old vehicles. It has been a source of knowledge, camaraderie, inspiration and socialising that really made the entire old car experience 100x more interesting. It's got me through down periods, and it's been there to share in the highs as well. I think the absolute zenith for me was The Naughty Corner which unexpectedly became a very hilarious place to be almost every day for many years.

I just read back through some of TNC trying to find the post where I stated I would only own my ElCo for one year. Couldn't find it, but that was partly because I was *issing myself with laughter at page after page of utter stupidity. Like all good things though TNC reached it's peak and then began to spiral down into a toxic slurry pit (the best places always do eventually) and it was time to call it a day on that. But for anyone still here from those days, thanks for the camaraderie, the advice, the absolute nonsense and the daily laughter that went into that.

Mostly though thanks to RR for making the whole forum possible and policing it with a firm but fair hand to keep it on track. Not an easy feat with 100s of random people from all corners of life, but somehow, with the lightest of touches, RR remains one of the best places to be on the internet. I really appreciate the quality time that RR has provided in my life for the last 10+ years. Cheers HoTWire

This is definitely my last post as I have now left old cars behind for the foreseeable future. I have a completely different hobby and a whole new world of forums and groups to explore.

So for those who new me, and even those who made it quite clear they absolutely despised me... cheers, and goodbye!








*give or take an entire month

👍