You Must Buy is about getting you to look at cars you might not consider otherwise. Often times they’re rare cars you might not have heard of or underrated performance gems that slipped off the radar. Above all, though, writing this column has amplified my appreciation for cars that are just totally strange. Like this, a Chevy El Camino with a Choo Choo Customs SS body kit.
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SS, as Chevy fans know, stands for “Super Sports.” This wasn’t a full SS treatment, though. It was more of a cosmetic rework. The customized front end had a nose that resembled the Monte Carlo stock car more than it did the standard El Camino. Combined with the gold paint and the SS decals, this is one of the more visually ambitious El Camino’s I’ve seen.
What makes it weird, though, is that this body kit wasn’t some one-off custom job. It was sold through Chevy dealers. See, while the early El Caminos offered full-fledged SS variants, the fifth-generation model never got a true Super Sports version. But seeing demand for a more aggressive looking El Camino, Chevy had its dealers offer the Choo Choo Customs SS Body Kit as an appearance package.
So you still got the same engine options as the standard El Camino, a V-6 or the upgraded 5.0-liter overhead valve V-8 that powers this El Camino “SS.” It made 150 horsepower, which strikes me as not quite enough to make the SS moniker accurate. Unsurprisingly, this kit wasn’t particularly popular. The styling was strange, the performance wasn’t really there, but it was a weird and bold idea.
I’m glad it exists and, if you’re into it, this one is up for auction on eBay.
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