Road Testing the '59 El Camino and Its 348-inch W-Series

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

- Steven Rupp & Drew Hardin

On December 1958, Ray Brock, HOT ROD’s technical editor, was in Chevy’s all-new 1959 El Camino for a comparison test with the Ford Ranchero. His enthusiasm for the car/truck hybrid (essentially a Brookwood two-door station wagon with an abbreviated roof and a bed floor over the wagon’s floorpan) obviously got the better of him on this mountain road, as you can barely see daylight between the pavement and the El Camino’s rocker panels. As former editor Drew Hardin pointed out, “Maybe he thought he was at Pikes Peak.”