50 / 5o or El Camino Dreams
and Ranchero Memories ...
Story line by Peddlar ...
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Peddlar, The Bikerpoet, Roadpoet, Autopoet ... Auto Photos by, Cherie Simpson aka The Pic-Chick ... ROCK and ROLL! There has always been a breed of Custom Builder, Hot Rodder, Street Rodder, who sees and does things, a little bit different from the rest of the pack. Not that Custom Builders, Street Rodders, and Hot Rodders, don't do things their own way, right from the get-go. But, as they say, "Some folks don't march to the beat of a different drummer ... They got their own band!" In the Motorcycle World these folks usually ride a trike / three wheeler, occasionally, but seldomly, stock. In the Custom Car World this breed of builder, owner, driver will often own / drive an El Camino or Ranchero type Sedan Pick-Up Truck. El Caminos and Rancheros are thos vehicles that look like the off spring of an Automobile Sedan / or an S S Chevy Coupe or a Ford Toreno in the front end and with a half Pick-up Truck type bed behind the driver's rear section. Yes, father's Shoulders and Mother's eyes. Often this gives the owner the best of both worlds. The style and comfort of an automobile and the utility of a light duty pick-up truck. The real hey-day of these vehicles in the U.S. was from around the Mid to late fifties or around 1957, when Ford came out with the Ranchero and in 1959, when Chevy came out with the El Camino, till around 1987 when Chevy ceased producing the El Camino State Side, ( Ford stopped building the Ranchero in the late 70's. ) And though, Chevy stopped producing the El Camino State Side in the 80's, El Caminos are still being built under the Moniker of the Holden Ute in Australia. And we should mention here that Dodge Motor Company built a small Sedan Pick-Up ( circa 1987, ) based on the Dodge Charger under the model name of the ( Rampage. ) |
Auto Photo by Cherie Simpson aka The Pic-Chick ...
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For surely, since the first time someone decided to take off the trunk lid from an old Ford Model T and build in a carrier bed ... the beginning of Ford Ranchero's History was being laid right along side the bed planks. At first there was not much difference between the Model T Coupe and the Model T Pick-up Truck; both were pretty much bare bones Vehicles and both drove and rode pretty much the same. Even the Model A Coupe and Model A Pick-up truck, when all things were considered, were very close to bare bones twins. But, as the thirties wore on, cars became more and more sophisticated and trucks remained much the same. So, riding in an automobile and riding in a Pick-up Truck, became two distinctively different rides. In around 1936, The Studebaker Motor Company picked-up on this Automobile and Pick-up Truck difference and decided to run with it, by coming out with a true Auto Sedan Pick-up truck, quite luxurious by 1936 standards. The Hudson Automobile Company came out with some fine Sedan Pick-up trucks of their own at the end of World War 2. Again, Holden came out with their own Auto Sedan Pick-up i/e the Ute, in about 1947, and soon to follow were The Ranchero and the El Camino, which came out in the Mid to Late 50's. But, we must stop and realize we are talking about American Moto-History here! Nobody builds anything in America that someone else doesn't lower it, chop it, customize it, or just dead up gives it a radicle paint job. By the dawn of 1961, Rancheros and El Caminos were an excepted fresh palette for the automobile Customizer. Ford never to be out done by its customers, factory built a Ford Falcon Ranchero with a small V-8 engine tucked under the hood. |
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The Motorcycle World is full of examples of this. Just examining trikes alone will give us one example after another of this statement, for trikes have been built from the modifications of Volks Wagons, Chevy Corvairs, Pontiacs, and Renault Dophines etc. In the Auto Mobile World this equals to a Chevy Two door Sedan being driven into the barn and a Pick-up Sedan being driven out. So, as the 1960's wore on, many owner built El Caminos and Rancheros type vehicles appeared on the road. When I was a youth in 1961, one of my first shade tree cars was a 1952 Ford Four-door sedan, cut down into a Ranchero, that was built by another youth named Butch Bullerwell. Butch built this car just before he headed off to Pensacola, Florida to become an Aviation Mechanic for the Navy. He did a fair job for a 17 year old youth with little more resources than his own mechanical abilities and his own custom visions. It was nosed, primed black, Buick port holes were cut and bolted into the hood and it had a pair Butch built, twin exhaust stacks coming up through the truck bed behind the drivers cab. In our area on the North Shore this was not the only owner buit unit runing around our town. There was a 55-Chevy Station Wagon, that was built into an El Camino ... it was a rough job, but, the real jewel of our area was a 1954 Olds two door, built into a Sedan Pick-up. This was a true Auto-Body Shop Custom built Pick-up Sedan. |
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