These two has-been rivals were spotted out on the Great Plains by jmg3rd during a rare moment of harmony. Like spotting Larry Bird and Magic Johnson out on the town together, one can imagine the years having softened any obvious animosity the two share in favor of appreciation of the great deal they have a lot in common. Wearing the same basic fashion, with similar proportions, you can almost imaging them discussing the more memorable events of their long-gone heyday.
You couldn’t choose a better backdrop for these images, either; it’s all very Last Picture Show. Despite such an unrelentingly flat landscape, someone took the care to park the two under some trees, helping provide much-needed shade. Given the provisions made for their comfort and rust free condition, they could be doing much worse in retirement. What do imagine they’re saying to each other? Do they mock today’s pickups for their technological overkill as someone might criticize their grandchildren’s fixation on glowing LCD screens? Do they deride the gigantic wheels on other cars as someone might mock the footwear chosen by today’s youth? Or do they perhaps still bristle at one another’s company?
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1977-79 Ford Ranchero – No Curbside Love For This One!
Curbside Capsule: 1974 Chevrolet El Camino – Sending Mixed Messages
“Or do they perhaps still bristle at one another’s company?”
These two look like engine donors to me. It’s the end of the road for them, so lets hope they’ll put all that behind them.
It looks like they are leaning away from each other in that front end shot! How about that ’69 or so GMC longbed? Very nice also.
Yes, I noticed him. I love old trucks, but who doesn’t?
Bring ’em back!! If Pontiac had survived, they were planning a Ponty “El Camino”. Platform? I think it was the G-8.
No guarantee that anyone would buy them.
Unfortunately, this is the case for many vehicles of yore of which people long for.
What ended this breed of cars ? They seem to be an ideal mixture between a comfortable car and a commercial vehicle/pickup-truck.
Modern American pickups are every bit as comfortable as “cars”, if not more so. That was not the case back then. So these vehicles have no niche to fill anymore. Not that the niche was all that big in the first place. Most of these never really hauled much anyway; they were a fad, mostly. Of course, many/most modern American pickups never haul much either.
In the late 1970’s the Ranchero production actually increased its last three years of production. It was selling something like 30,000 units per year (IIRC).
However, in the grand scheme of truck sales, this was small peanuts and not worth the cost to continue in 1980. In addition, the Fox platforms weren’t well suited to a car based pickup.
For whatever reason, both El Camino and Ranchero surged to huge sales numbers in 1974. The 1970’s seemed to be a time where these vehicles were very popular. El Camino stayed fairly strong until the mid 1980’s when production dwindled. My guess is by then the compact truck market started to replace these hybrids.
Like Paul said, these were never overly capable as haulers, typically having around a 1200 lb payload. The sad thing is, that this beats some of the monstrous pickups made today. Car and Driver’s Ram 1500 they tested last year had a measly 800 lb payload rating.
Oops ! Surely that payload rating is because of some “special” legislation and/or liability reasons ? Even if it was 800 kg instead of lbs it would still be not much. (for a BOF-truck.with that size and a big engine)
Nope. Just a combination of a ride oriented suspension set up and a tall final drive ratio. It was a big 4 door, 4×4 pickup with a GVWR of 6,800 lbs. Unfortunately, it weighed 5,999 lbs as equipped, so even carrying four grown men wouldn’t be a good idea if they wanted to bring their lunches and a cooler full of cold drinks. Never mind using the ornamental bed.
We’ve actually got a substantial number of US pickup-trucks here. Used as tugboats (as you can clearly see), not to carry loads in the cargo beds. So it’s the towing capacity that really matters.
Owned by enthusiasts, guys who like to drive something special, something that stands out. Iveco, Mercedes and also Ford (Transit) are the more ordinary tractors for such jobs.
(Photo: Trias Trailers)
Not the truck but the boat fascinates me, what is it? It looks fast & oceangoing, like a rescue craft.
Neil, all I could find about the boat is this: it’s a 1,050 hp powerboat, length 45 ft, weight 14,330 lbs.
It seems to be something like this. (Photo: Powerboat-Scheveningen)
Thanks! 1000+hp is what the Allison V-1710 could develop, & these have been used in powerboat racing, but surely there are more practical alternatives to an out-of-production WW2 prop-fighter motor.
Although eclipsed by the more powerful Merlin, the Allison was rugged; I understand they could absorb War Emergency power for long periods.
Neil, I found the website of the owner of the boat, RIB Verhuur.
(the name is right there on the boat) More pictures of their powerboats, click on “Boten”:
http://ribverhuur.nl/
Finally checked out the “boten,” & it seems that some use multiple engines; one had 2 350s. Could be Chevy Small-Blocks; I know that big V8s have been popular among the power boat crowd.
No that payload is just Ram being lame, you can get Ford and GM “1/2 tons” that have a full 1 ton or more of payload rating if you order it right. There have also been versions available with ~1 1/2 tons of payload.
This 2103 Ram, tested at C/D? It had a payload of 1490 lbs, 6050 lbs towing capacity . A different one? 800 lbs seems ridiculous. Do you have a link?
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2013-ram-1500-slt-v6-8at-test-review
It was a Hemi Equipped 4-door Laramie Longhorn in a comparison test.
http://www.caranddriver.com/comparisons/2014-chevrolet-silverado-1500-ltz-z71-vs-2013-ford-f-150-lariat-2013-ram-1500-laramie-longhorn-comparison-test
Weight of the truck: 5999 lbs, GVWR: 6800 lbs = payload 801 lbs.
These days the ads and brochures all promote maximum payloads, but the reality is that most trucks sold don’t have anywhere near that, especially once they get weighted down with all the crap that doesn’t belong in a truck (IMO). I own a modern truck, but at least mine still has a bed that’s bigger than the cab…
So who says Americans don’t buy big cars anymore? They’re just classed and registered as trucks! 🙂
You’re righter (yes, that’s totally a word) than you realize, Pete. The average 1/2 ton crew cab 5.5′ bed pickup is today’s BOF V8-powered RWD Brougham, particularly among the air-ride equipped Rams (which truly do ride like a Cadillac of the 70’s, minus the floatiness).
I think it’s just the 3.0L turbo diesel that has the 800 lbs. or so payload rating. The 1500 diesel is really more of a full-sized green luxury car than typical pickup.
The 801 lb payload Ram that Car and Driver tested was a 4×4 with a Hemi and a 3.31 final drive ratio.
Being only a 2-3 seater, with no back seat, would not work in today’s market, too. 4 door pickups are today’s, ‘full size family cars’.
That G-8 was a Holden and this body style already existed in Australia. GM imported Holdens as the G-8 and as the GTO, so bringing over the El Camino version of this Holden was a possibility. Australia kept the car/pick-up body style a generation longer than in the US.
Remember the Rabbit pick up? Instead of doing a compact truck like the ones offered by Datsun, Toyota, Mazda or Isuzu – VW got weird and turned a Rabbit into a “truck”. Worse, it got Chrysler thinking it could do the same thing with their Rabbit – the Omnirizon coupes. Remember that goofy Rampage thingy?
What killed off the Ranchero and the El Camino was Japanese compact trucks. The success of the Datsun and Toyota HiLux pick ups revealed a market for small pick ups. By the time of the last Ranchero and El Camino, we see Ford importing Mazda B2000 as Ford Couriers, and GM importing Isuzu pick ups and renaming them as Chevy P’Ups. Both Ford and GM had the first generation Ranger and S-10s being designed and built as a follow up to their imported small trucks.
So the Ranchero and the El Camino are really old school. Neither vehicle would be very welcomed in today’s market. I just cannot imagine seeing a Ford Fusion Ranchero, or a Chevy Malibu El Camino today. Back then these intermediate vehicles were rear drive BOF designs with a completely different driving sensation from today’s intermediate cars. I highly doubt today’s buyers would want the isolated ride, the ergonomics, and the sedan-high riding position these vehicles offered.
The Chevy cited as the P’Up was named LUV (Light Utility Vehicle)
The Japanese pickups are finally killing off our Aussie utes. But there’s one corner of the ute market the Japanese don’t have a hope of competing in – the V8 sports ute.
Ahh, the falcon ute. Still has LEAF springs & a live axle at the back.
Weak as piss structure wise. One half decent rear impact will bow those sides out & bend it at the cab/bed join.
“Ford Australia- someone’s got to keep leaf spring makers employed”
The Japanese trucks didn’t really kill the Elky/Ranchero as they continued to sell at similar rates. They Elky and Ranchero were much much more comfortable and had similar payload and bed sizes. Their drawback vs the mini truck was that they cost about twice as much to buy and twice as much to feed. What really killed them was the platforms that they were built on going away and even that didn’t kill the Elky right away since they continued to solder on the G body so they were able to justify keeping the pickup version.
Big On The Outside/Small On The Inside at its worst: Big, bloated car with both a too-small cabin and a too-small bed.
Give me a post-1978-downsizing El Camino instead.
Ditto. I never cared for the ’73-’77 generation Malibu & El Camino; both predecessor & downsized successor is more to my taste. The pictured Ranchero actually looks better-balanced than the Torino/LTD II because of the rear overhang.
I think VanillaDude has it right: more practical Japanese mini-pickups & their Detroit competitors made these intermediate hybrids redundant as casual haulers. Only real rationale left is that they may look sleeker.
Double ditto on the downsized 78-87s putting the Colonnade El Caminos to shame. I prefer the Chevy over the Ranchero with the LTD II front end, but it’s the other way around with the Gran Torino front end.
Too small cabin describes the mini truck of the era. There is a lot of room in these comparatively, actual leg room and you can seat 3 across much better than a mini truck too. The Ranchero/El Camino also had payloads in the 1200lb range depending on brand and year, so as much as a minitruck and a bed that was actually wide enough to fit a 4 ft wide sheet of building materials between the wheel wells.
But these types of vehicles are still popular in Australia as utes. What would account for the difference in the market?
Are they? Me thinks they’re petering out there too. Haven’t you heard that both Ford and Holden are shutting down their local AUS production? Japanese pickups stole their market away years ago. Someday we’ll be be pondering what happened to the Australian utes just like we ponder these.
Regular pickups have gotten so comfortable, and yet capable that there’s no need for these car-based utes anymore. A chapter in automotive history is drawing to a close.
What they’ve also gotten is prohibitively expensive. You can’t buy any truck in America anymore for less than $20,000. And that is for a “small” truck. Hell, Ford doesn’t even make a small truck anymore. A lot of us aren’t farmers (or faux-mers for that matter) but could use a capable stripped down small truck for trips to the home improvement store but that truck is no longer built.
I sympathize, yet I also sympathize with Ford seeing the writing on the wall given the secular decline in demand for the Ranger. From a cost perspective, it makes little sense to continue producing an otherwise useful niche vehicle. It seems the pickup market today wants chromed Monster Trucks regardless of fuel consumption or bulk.
Tyranny of the Majority: If you want something the crowd doesn’t, you lose. I don’t like it either.
You can still get a regular cab 4 cylinder Tacoma that has dimensions within an inch or two of the equivalent old Ranger. They’re practically free too, but nobody actually wants to buy one new.
Practically free? I was looking at them today online and the MSRP is right at $20,000.
I’m seeing $19K with destination, but I would get a manual transmission. Actually, I’ve often thought about paying $23K for a 4 cylinder, manual, 4×4 regular cab. Thinking about it isn’t doing anything to keep such trucks on offer though. Now they only come in white. Virtually free was in contrast to the trucks that seem to sell well. Tacoma double cabs with options are in the 30s. Full sized trucks as tested by magazines are 40 to 68 thousand dollars.
Paul, they are still very popular here but for different reasons. This body style is called a “utility” here – or “ute” for short – and is was actually invented by Ford Australia. THe story goes that a Grazier (a term usually applied to a sheep framer here) wrote to Ford saying he wanted a vehicle he could use on the farm during the week, but was stylish enough for a trip to town on Saturday. SO using a Ford V8 Coupe as a basis, they invented the “coupe utility”. This was in 1932 or 1934 from memory.
By the 1950’s you could get utes based on Customlines and various GM passenger cars.
The two longest serving utes are the Falcon and Holden utes – these are famous here and they have become a kind of sports car, often driven by young guys who are doing pretty well (often working in the mines or other high paying trades). Hardly ever do you see one hauling any kind of load – more likely it is towing a jetski or some other lifestyle accessory!
Utes will be sorely missed here – we even have a special racing category for them! Many these days are very highly equipped and powerful cars, often V8’s.
I think more Australians will mourn the passing of the ute than of their donor sedans.
Here you go, good old Australian ute racing!
Ashley: Yes, I know. I’ve written at least one or more story on the history of the ute. FWIW, Ford (in the US) offered a Model T runabout pickup starting in 1925. It’s considered the first of its kind, and almost ten years before the first Australian ute. But I know how Ozzies feel about their special relationship to the ute 🙂
By “popular”, I mean in terms of new car sales, not in the public’s heart. If they were still so popular (in sales) , GM and Ford might not be shutting down, eh? It’s a concept whose time has come and gone. But I’m sure it will stay popular as a historic vehicle.
Paul, the distinctive part of “our” ute was having the bed integral with the body sides. That gave it style (I’m speaking in a ’30s context here) rather than looking like a home-made hack job on a cut-down touring car (which is what most small farmers used).
Also having the ute based on a coupe gave it a special, upmarket feel – as most Australians bought either open tourers (still!) or four door sedans, the coupe was something of a special, almost rare body style here. So as well as having practicability, there was also almost an aura of prestige about it too.
Might seem weird to an American, but that’s Australia!
Old Pete is right. Whereas that T is basically a cab chassis, the Australian unit was conceived as a full body vehicle. Ironically, the designer of the first Ford ute (Mr Brandt) actually died in an accident in a replica of his very first Ute. Sad.
Rather like the passenger car they were based on, Falcon and Holden utes will die because their manufacturers did not update the basic concept to meet modern needs. The 1960 Falcon ute was a 6 cylinder petrol car, as is the 2014 version! Alternative fuels and so on could have kept the sedans and utes going longer, but that ship has sailed.
More irony – Ford recenly brought out a last-of-the-line Falcon GT and it sold out immediately!
I know; I know…that’s why I said “FWIW”. But then in 1925, there was no such thing as a body with integral sides all the way back. That was a development of the new aero-influenced styling of the 30s.
So while the Australian ute gets credit for being the first to do that (a styling pioneer from Australia?), the concept of a passenger-car based pickup was not new to it.
Lew Brandt was the designer of the Ford Coup’e Utility it debuted in 1934, Nearly every car sold in Australia had a Ute counterpart even makes like Armstrong Siddeley got in on the act,
The range blossomed in the 50s with Ford selling Anglia/Prefect, Consul,and Zephyr and Mainlines utes and with GMH marketing Chevrolet Vauxhall and Holden utes, it deteriorated down to just Falcon Holden and Valiant utes in the 60s as the local manufacturers dumped the inhouse competition to their”local” product.
Now only the Holden and Falcon remain and their run is nearly over due to inhouse competition the Holden Colorado and Ford Ranger have stolen the sales from the local product, more versatility, 4WD and turbo diesel engines make them more practical as work trucks, my brother has recently been issued a Ranger pickup to replace his Holden crewman and he reports its nicer to drive more comfortable on long trips and far more economical the the Holden, Adelaide to Melbourne on less than 1 tank of diesel no doubt helps the company bottom line.
I’ve never understood why they called it the Colorado here. How many Aussies would even know whereabouts in the US Colorado even is? Only reason I know is because a niece used to live there. 🙂
Here’s a Colorado beetle. I wonder if our potato growers know the whereabouts of Colorado in the US. And there must be folks in Colorado who drive a Beetle and never heard of this beetle.
“Colorado” is Spanish for “ruddy,” which was what impressed Spanish explorers about the river. Spanish has long been mined for marketable names by industry (as in El Camino & Ranchero). I surmise that the State has probably had enough exposure over the years (as in Western movies) for the name to be known world-wide by now.
One difference in Australia is the Holden And Falcon utes are now available as cab chassis, broadening their appeal.
GMH began doing that in the 70s with the one tonner Ford only just got in on the act Holden also had a dual wheel setup on its 1 Ton tray back using a CF Bedford Jumbo rear axle.
Pretty sure that dual rear wheel Holden was the aftermarket conversion by Colin Box of Colac. My neighbour over the road used to have one.
Could be the service guy who did the tractors on a farm I worked on had one with a crane fitted for engine lifting he said he bought it new cab n chassis and bodied it himself it was a body in wellside style consisting of lockers for tools quite well done certainly practical for his use I didnt know they were conversions.
I remember the surprise I got in a Ford dealership one day when I overheard a tradie ordering an XR6 cab/chassis! Didn’t know they came that way.
Yes, Paul – GM (Holden), Ford, AND Toyota are shutting down all manufacturing in Oz by 2016 or 2017. The combination of small market (can’t get economies of scale), high costs coupled with unfavorable currency exchange rates (which have been buoyed by Australian commodity exports) has led to that. After then, all vehicles will be imported into Oz by these companies – a lot of them will be from countries such as Thailand. Nissan and Mitsubishi (who once had the #1 or #2 best selling car in Australia, the Magna) had shut down local assembly years before.
I’m not aware to the extent that Japanese brand p’ups have penetrated the market Down Under. Anyone care to shed some light on that? Though I did hear that the Hilux is pretty popular there. I do know that the market for big passenger cars like the Falcon and Commodore have been shrinking over the years and there’s not much of a market for exporting them due to their size and cost.
Japanese utes have taken over, but they are entirely different proposition – more along the lines of pick ups than true coupe-utilities.
Japanese “trayback” utes are the ones trade guy like builders etc actually use for work. It is not uncommon for a builder to have a Toyota for work and a nice Falcon or Holden ute for weekends!
Plus you can get variations like Diesel and all wheel drive, as well as crew cab configurations. Think of the variety available in, say, F series Ford trucks in a more compact and fuel efficient size. In comparison the limited types of Falcon and Commodore ute available are often to compromised for a lot of businesses.
An average person, or younger car fan would say “Oh look two El Caminos!” The brand name is ‘genericized’ to mean car-pickup to many novices.
I dunno, I wasn’t a car guy until I was about 17 and I knew the difference between the two. Maybe because our town was/is much like Lake Wobegon, in that the rivalry between Ford and GM is alive and well, and God help you if you confuse the one for the other…:)
Hilux is usually in the top 5 sellers and I am pretty sure it has been the highest monthly seller at least once. Utes are still popular – lots on the road, but I think the cheaper imported pickups are a factor, say 20% cheaper, which nearly killed the ute 25 years ago, as well as the double cab factor. They are not as comfortable or as good to drive but close enough. If Ford put their diesel in the ute they would have got a nice bump in sales, nearly all pickup sales are diesel.
It is amazing how similar these two look, too bad they are wearing fat suits.
Saw this in town on Sunday the owner told me it began life as a hearse and he cut the station wagon section off. The ‘Continero’
Holy shit, I love that!
Ditto; that generation Town Car’s overly boxy lines work well in this case, & as with the Ranchero, the bed balances out the excessive front overhang beloved by Ford. Didn’t know there were hearse conversions of it; I’m used to Cadillacs getting that job stateside.
So this is the 1st car I’ve heard of being customized twice over.
There are a couple more shots on the cohort, it looks quite well done sorta right in the proportions he shoulda deleted the strange stripes on the roof but overall a nice hack job.
Very nicely done.
“What do imagine they’re saying to each other?”
The Ranchero is saying “Where are your wheel covers? Have you no sense of propriety? You look like a wanna be thug with his pants hanging down.”
The Ranchero and El Camino were useless. They weren’t anything more than station wagons with the back 3/4 of the roof cut off. With a wagon you couldn’t haul a heavy load. But at least there was room for carrying the kids. With these piles of crap you couldn’t do either.
You could handle tall loads without having to borrow someone’s pickup truck, which had a helluva lot rougher ride than they do today. You could handle people (remember, these were the days when safety was less of an issue), at least for short trips.
My mother’s father bought a brand-new El Camino in 1969 or so, powder blue. His 3 children and wife fit “just fine”–my mother and her sister on the bench seat between Mom and Dad, and my uncle, the youngest, in the space behind the seat. A little tight, yes, but they never took it any farther than probably 25-30 miles away. For long trips (which were a lot fewer and farther between than what we do today) there was the station wagon.
This sounds all very logical. Just like the older generations of station wagons. (Now they’re more lifestyle vehicles, whatever that may be)
The older square models (and thus roomy and practical) were often bought by bakers, plumbers, electricians, etc. For them it was a perfect mixture between a comfortable family car and a commercial vehicle that they used for their profession.
Here’s such a GM product from the seventies, an Opel Rekord wagon.
How clean are those lines. Love this model, looks good in all variants.
The equivalent from Ford Europe, the Granada wagon.
You’re messing with my head, Johannes. Please write up either one. Or both.
Sorry to say that our baker died years ago. He always drove the Opel Rekord wagons, I remember his D and E models, loaded with bread. And with his kids on the back seats in the weekends.
Alas, no pictures. Too late.
They look good, but. Some of the El Camino and Rancho proportioning makes them great looking open payload vehicles, even if they aren’t really for the job.
The Ranchero in the picture looks like it’s missing an engine; that’s why it’s riding high at the bow.
My dad had a 71 El Camino and a little league coach had one of those bloated Elky’s I distinctly remember riding in the bedof my little league coach’s elky filled with equipment and most of the team.