Gone are the days of the hay-hauling, tire-mauling, flog-it-till-it's-dead shop trucks. If you're going to make a statement with your company vehicle, make sure you are heard loud and seen big! After all, Oscar Meyer has the Weiner mobile, Batman has the Batmobile, and Mothers (the polish/wax/cleaner people) has the coolest El Camino rolling down the streets of Southern California.
Do too many cooks really spoil the soup? Well, maybe in your kitchen they do, but in Mothers' kitchen these cooks had their eye on the same main course. It was only through the collaborative efforts of the Mothers' crew that the El Camino took shape from concept to reality. These gents are more than just chemists with Bunsen burners and boiling beakers, all of Mothers' children are real life, down-to-earth, gear-grinding go-fast fanatics. These guys understand that a car can look pretty and polished just sitting there, but there is nothing quite so beautiful than that same work of art going fast.
The need for speed drove the gearheads at Mothers to choose a monster-sized 572 Chevy crate engine and 4L80E trans to throw in the pot for that needed giddy up. There is nothing small about this '67 Elky; from its high-horse Rat to the monster-sized 36-gallon fuel cell, to the one-off 20- and 22-inch Billet Specialties wheels and matching steering wheel, all of which adds to the Elky's large and in charge stance.
This El Camino is a big bite to swallow--in a good way and it didn't come about by accident. Chip Foose was consulted and threw some super slick ideas onto the drawing board; the colors and the way they flow from inside to out were all part of Chip's vision. Mr. Foose's ideas were put into reality by Five Axis Body & Paint and Lanzini Body Works in Huntington Beach, California. Carlos, of Stitchcraft in Westminster, California, turned the interior concepts into a reality and laid it all out in the finest red and black Katzkin leather to grace the cockpit of such a creation.
The underbelly of the '67 is as well thought out as its slippery exterior, thanks to the guys at Streetwise in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. Take a crawl under the California-rake and the first thing that grabs the eye is the sexy-looking rearend. Doug Nagy and Johnny Omondson are no strangers to performance and pushing the limits of any vehicle and their contributions to the Mothers El Camino are no different. Using Speedway Engineering quick-change gears, they built the all-business rearend that's surrounded by their billet control arms. Hotchkis upper control arms are found up front as well as their swaybars at each end along with QA1 coilover shocks and giant-sized Baer Brake 13-inch rotors.
Taking in all the pertinent information that makes up this often over-looked body style, might need some time to digest as we all get closer to thinking outside the pickup box.