Projects Out with the old, in with the new, am I still worthy??

I like 'em both but the 51 had the look. My 65 had a 250, T-5....was fun to drive but wouldn't win any races.

 

Thanks again for the great responses. I am going to past on the repaint and just give the current paint job a buff out. While it's not a shiny, show quality job, it's good enough for my goal of having a clean El Camino. It runs and drives beautiful, so my plans is to replace the emblems and bed moulding I am going to put the "Chevelle" name back on the front fender and put the "V" with the flags, which are from a 66. I will also remove the window tint, and as for the inside, just add the Super Sport gauges and reinstall the original steering wheel.
My "problem" are the rims. I like the "SS" hubcaps (I also have the original 64 standard wheel covers) but I also like the look of the Supremes/Cragar SS. I was looking at OE chrome reverse but they are expensive when compared to the Supremes/Cragars.

 

Magnum 500s came out in '65. I had to Nice ElCamino.

 

JC - You'll never be sorry buffing that baby out. Truly stress free driving when the ride doesn't have new paint. Paint jail would cut into road time. Supremes!

 

The cool thing about driving these cars is that you're in this long vehicle, but your head is kinda sticking up in a little ''canopy'' hardly any larger than the seating area. It's not much of a stretch to imagine being a space cadet for me.

 

65 El Camino air shock gauge for mounting under the rear panel tray
Hey JC,

Here is the custom air pressure gauge I installed, under the package tray, behind the passenger side seat back. It saved me plenty of time not having to use the inaccurate air gauge from the gas station hose or my own hand held stick. This was fairly accurate and I did not have any shock blow outs from over loading the air pressure.

It stays out of sight because it is mounted below the shelf and only the stock air valve sticks up from the tray. Despite what the air hose gauge says, this one is more accurate as checked by my dad’s expert mechanic in Los Angeles. It was in 1965, so probably hard to find, today. But, with all of those hydraulic shocks that have gauges on the market, I am sure you can modify one to fit under the rear window tray to work on your 64 El Camino. (a “T” fitting is necessary)

We used this almost daily to create a slight rake in the look of the 65 El Camino. But as more air is put in, the ride got bumpier. Once stuff is put in the back, and the car is level, the ride was excellent. We used it a lot with a single Greeves Motocross bike and then two bikes out to the Mojave for the Hare and Hound races.


Jnaki

The big problem is that once you raise the bed with 60+ lbs of pressure and then you empty the bed of its contents, your El Camino looks like a stink bug ready for defense actions. We had to remember to park it in a lower dip when unloading the bikes. Then after those long races, we could still ride up the ramp to the slightly raised bed. Otherwise if the car is on level ground, it was very difficult to ride up that ramp, let alone push it up to the super, raised bed. YRMV