However, many buyers that purchased El Camino with one of the V8 options upgraded to a four-speed manual extra-cost option. A performance suspension was available on all V8s, and was required for all that included the 396.Īs it had in previous years, the El Camino came standard with a three-speed manual transmission, and that could be upgraded to the two-speed Powerglide transmission. The first was also rated at 325 horsepower, while the second was recalibrated to produce 350 horsepower. For those that wanted even more power, they could choose from two versions of the 396 V8. The first had been carried over from the year before and produced 275 horsepower, while a new version upped that performance to 325 horsepower. The first was a 2-barrel 283 CID V8, and this could be upgraded to one of two 327 CID V8 options. Those that wanted a V8 engine in their El Camino, however, had a slew of options to choose from. Only about 12 percent of El Camino buyers purchased the six-cylinder, and those that didn’t choose the base engine upgraded to the new 250 CID six that offered 155 horsepower.
The previous base engine in the El Camino had been a 194 CID six-cylinder, and the 230 CID six that was made standard for 1967 was an option. And though sales slipped slightly for the 1967 model year, they were still very respectable, still higher than Ford’s car/truck the Ranchero and would once again rise significantly the following year. With the car selling well every year since the second-generation models had been introduced in 1964 (after a three year hiatus since the first-generation models), Chevy appeared to decide to stick with what was working. Nowadays you can get the same look and experience, well a lot better actually, from the cheater slicks offered by Coker Tire.For 1967, the El Camino continued its tradition of evolving slowly year after year, improving the car without making any substantial design or performance changes. Plenty of guys drove their gassers on the street for daily transportation but come the weekend out came the Casler cheater slicks mounted to a set of black steelies and to the dragstrip. The street gasser was the epitome of the street-strip car. This was still the era of a timing light, dwell meter, and feeler gauges (gotta love those solid lifter cams) in the trunk. And with this there was almost as much engine above the hood line as there was below. This was also the era of the tunnel ram single and dual quad with the dual four-barrel being the option of choice. The GMC 4- and 6-71 roots blowers were finding their way from the strip to the street. Hurst or Herbert and Meeks engine swap kits were the rage for swapping any engine into anything. Back in the day it would have been a small-block Chevy and with the advent of the late ‘60s the big-block began to settle in under the hood. As horsepower output went up the somewhat anemic T-10 was either voluntarily replaced or replaced after it was “hand-grenade” via missed 2-3 shift or just too much torque.īut let’s get back to the rumble under the hood. The tranny of choice for the Chevy crowd, still the most popular gasser brand, would be a T-10, followed by a Saginaw. Of course, this was the late-‘50s and ‘60s and any gasser worth its straight axle would be found with a four-speed with a Hurst Competition-Plus shifter resting inside. We should point out if you were really cool and into tuning your own V-8 you would have a three-pack of firewall gauges too. Ah the days of pumping hot oil and water into your car just to have the lines develop a leak and drip all over that new Tijuana discount carpet. Of course, the really cool guys had mechanical gauges. There was always water temp, oil pressure, and battery. Other interior appointments included the obligatory three-pack of Stewart-Warner 2-5/8-inch gauges (now available from Classic Instruments in 2-5/8-inch and old-style face) or other smaller face gauges.
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