(first posted 10/6/2012) I do love the odd stuff. A mint, numbers-matching ’69 Camaro? Nice enough, but there are dozens at any given show. On the other hand, something unusual or wacky at a show will always get my immediate attention. At first glance, especially from the front, this 1958 Chevrolet looked mundane enough…but this one has something a little extra.
Extra trunk length, that is. From the rear, it almost looks like an optical illusion. Actually, this started out as a 1958 Biscayne four-door sedan. The owner didn’t know a whole lot of its history when he bought it, but thanks to the internet he’s nailed down some of its build history.
Its two rear doors were welded shut, the passenger compartment shortened by 32″, and the rear window section reused wisely. The extra 32″ was added to the trunk to produce a sort-of-more-modern, extended-trunk version of the “businessman’s special” coupes of the 1940s.
While the result may not be to everyone’s taste, the workmanship is fantastic. So what do you say: a hit or a miss?
Hit, it is very unique!
It looks like someone put a “trunk” on a classic El Camino. You could carry enough luggage to criss cross the entire North American continent.
I was just thinking that it looks like it could have been some kind of styling exercise for Holden, as a deluxe ute of some kind.
Holden stopped building chev utes a couple of model prior to this, maybe they shouldnt have.
It’s got more trunk space than a ‘Vette. Win.
LOVE IT!!
Hit!!
The execution is a hit. The concept is a miss. Should have just made an elky.
Btw, they even had something they called a business coupe in 1957 IIRC. It actually was just a two door with post and didn’t look much like a coupe to me. An edition of that hit Nascar like a ton of bricks.
Well crafted, but a miss. My vote might have been otherwise with a more straightforward El Camino treatment. The open bed might have worked. But the overly long trunk/deck just does not work for me. I feel the same way about the late 1940s Mopar business coupes. The proportions are just wrong.
Great, I get to be that first to say it. I’ll bet that car’s got a lot of junk in the trunk!
Cool find. Quite obviously, Chevrolet was still researching the market created by the new for 1957 Ford Ranchero. Rather than go with an identical copy, they went with this enclosed trunk version for 1958 (with less than stellar results). Of course, by the next year, they resigned themselves to just going with the El Camino.
At least the 1958 ‘Business Coupe’ makes for a good ‘yo mama’ joke: “Yo mama’s butt is bigger than that car’s!”.
What’s up with everybody welding ’58 Chevy doors shut?
You beat me to it. Maybe they don’t stay in alignment well?
That 3-door ’58 stuck in my mind because its CC Clue drove me absolutely crazy.
I ask myself the same thing…seen a couple 58 4 dr wagons with the rear doors welded shut. I’d rather have just had the 4 door before it was butchered up. Good workmanship, though.
Possibly a combination of general American-baby-boomer-car-guy distaste for four-doors with the fact that for ’58 Chevys live in the shadow of ’55-57s, while earlier and later cars were an entirely different aesthetic, and were cheap enough to mess around around with long after even ’55-57 four-door posts were too costly to cut up.
HIT, a ute is tooo easy.
Gives a whole new meaning to “Junk in the Trunk”
La Bamba, esse.
Not to exceed 25 mph except 50 mph allowed on freeways.
A well-constructed MISS.
The proportions are all wrong. AND…a tall occupant is going to be banging his head on that fastcab roofline.
I’m reminded of talented kids who’ll spend months and mucho dinero kit-bashing a two-door GM bloatmobile side-treatment into one of their bloated wagon base chasses…ending up with the land-barge shooting-brake as a new class of car.
They’ve done it well and with imagination…but, why, God? WHY?
The workmanship is certainly flawless, although the concept is iffy…did the creator of this vehicle have that much stuff he needed an oversize trunk? This brings to mind another modified ’58 Chevy…back in the ’60’s an individual who lived across the street from one of my uncles had a four door ’58 Chevy (I don’t remember the model), he cut off the
body behind the front doors, installed sheet metal and a window to the back of the body and mounted wooden planks on the frame-sort of a DIY pickup. Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of it. It was certainly unique.
Hundreds of these cut off two and four door cars were made into a pickups or wreckers of sorts mostly before WWI but some after as well. The two door conversion with the longer door allowed a bit more room inside the body.
The trunk area could have been sleeping (??) quarters with some ventilation.
It’s a hit. But your first photo differs from the succeeding ones in that the regular chromed wheels are replaced with baby moons over chrome reverses, a combo I have always liked. Different car show, I assume where the wheels were swapped?
Different license plates, too.
I suspect the photos are from an archive; and the changes reflect new owners’ tastes.
Different shows. I’ve seen it twice now. In Alberta they only issue rear plates. Often people have a period one on the front like this one.
it has to be a mega-hit. It’s something I would do!
This reminds me of 2 almost-forgotten moments from the teen years…
1. One of the first (only?) major model car projects I tried to do was take the front end of a ’58 Impala and match it up to the bed of a ’65 El Camino. I never finished it…
2. At a car show in Lima, Ohio, someone had a ’58 “El Camino”. I don’t know what it was built from, but it was painted a hideous coarse metalflake pink.
Hit! Though I think it’d be even cooler yet with a little more of a kustom flair to it, a la the Bailon Ranchero. (See Below)
P.S. There’s a cool article about the Bailon Ranchero here: http://www.customcarchronicle.com/news-flash/bailon-ranchero-restored/
Hit. Risk-takingly hard-hitting, too. The dividing line between genius and idiocy is a fine one but at least the builder took the chance and gave it his best.
Definitely preferable to yet another 1969 Camaro. Come to think of it, in fifty years will car show attendees be seeing (horrors) numbers-matching Toyota Camrys?
A strange one, but that doesn`t mean I don`t like it. Still Camaro/Firebird preferable.
Hit, if you don’t think about opening that trunk. Does it use screw jacks? If I think “truck” rather than “coupe” it’s great. Certainly more conventionally attractive, though much less funky than a ’59.
I think it cries for metallic paint to showcase the subtle curves and workmanship.
Sorry, but every time I look at this thing, which should have been an El Camino build, I can’t help but think of the new Biscayne my Dad had in 1958. It was two tone blue and white and was a very pretty car. This one not so much.
Dad’s ’58 was in a lot of our home movies which I have on DVD. It is nice to see it still new and being used. Of course it is even better to see my Mom and Dad and all the older generation that are no longer with us, too.
Depending on where you were, vertical clearance could be an issue in opening the trunk.
another answer to a question no one will EVER ask!
Do people just not notice that sedan doors are shorter than coupe doors, so that if you try to convert a 4-door car into a 2-door car, the proportions are all wrong? Because this same mistake gets made over and over.
I have noticed that , too. A real business coupe would have used doors from a two door model. That is also why the Ranchero and El Camino have good proportions even with the later battering ram bumpers.
Woof. Nice workmanship but such a miss. +1 on I’d rather have the 4-door than this.
Also, am I nuts or does this have wide whites on one side and blackwalls on the other??
Dunno if I like this at all. Looks like a Rambler ate the Chevy front end.
Took me a while, but now I know what this reminds me of…