El Camino 1964 to 1967—The Second Generation

Chevrolet took a two-door Chevelle, chopped it behind the B-pillar, and created a truck that didn’t look or drive like one. The second-generation El Camino grew from a mild six-cylinder hauler into a genuine SS396 performer by 1967. Read on to see how a utility vehicle ended up with a 375-horsepower option.

Not many vehicles manage to be a passenger car and a pickup truck at the same time without feeling like a compromise at either job. Chevrolet’s second-generation El Camino pulled it off well enough that, by the end of its run, it was outrunning plenty of dedicated muscle cars at a stoplight. The trick wasn’t styling — it was what Chevrolet let buyers order under the hood, and the progression from 1964 to 1967 tells a story of a truck slowly turning into something else entirely.

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Modest Beginnings: 1964’s Engine Lineup

The second-generation El Camino didn’t reach showroom floors until 1964, sharing its platform directly with the Chevelle. Chevrolet’s engineers took a two-door Chevelle, chopped it at the B-pillar, and the result was a plain-Jane clone of the Chevelle that still displayed badging from both vehicles. Power options that first year were modest: a 194-cubic-inch six, a 230-cubic-inch six, and a 283-cubic-inch V8 rated at 195 horsepower with a two-barrel carburetor as the standard offering. Buyers could upgrade to a four-barrel version of the 283 producing 220 horsepower, which also added dual exhaust as part of the package.

The 327 Small-Block Option

The largest available engine that first year was a 327-cubic-inch small-block V8, offered in two states of tune: a 250-horsepower two-barrel version, or a tighter-compression variant with a higher 10.5:1 ratio that, paired with a larger four-barrel carburetor, reached 300 horsepower. Dual exhaust pipes came standard with that upgraded 327, giving the 1964 El Camino a genuine performance option well beyond what most buyers expected from something with a cargo bed bolted onto a car platform.

1965 Brings More Power to the Same Platform

By 1965, the El Camino remained on the same Chevelle platform, but Chevrolet expanded the power options to be both more plentiful and larger in displacement, a change that appealed to a wider range of buyers. The powertrain lineup carried over from the previous year, but horsepower ratings on the V8 engines climbed noticeably, with the top 327-cubic-inch engine now rated at 350 horsepower. That single jump made the 1965 El Camino a considerably more serious performance option than the truck Chevrolet had introduced just one year earlier.

1966: The Year the El Camino Got Serious

1966 marked the point where the El Camino stopped being a curiosity and became a genuine performance vehicle. Buyers could now order a new 396-cubic-inch V8, which, depending on the specific accessories selected, produced anywhere from 325 to 375 horsepower. The top-rated version turned in quarter-mile times in the low 15-second range and reached a top speed north of 90 miles per hour — numbers that stood up well against dedicated muscle cars of the same era, not just other trucks. Buyers that year chose between a bare-bones Spartan utility trim or an upscale custom model featuring deep-pile carpet, swivel bucket seats, and an optional console-mounted tachometer, while the full Chevelle lineup received a revised dashboard with a sweep-needle speedometer.

1967’s Refinements and the 396’s Second Year

For 1967, the El Camino received a new grille, a redesigned front bumper, and revised exterior trim. Adjustable air shocks remained a practical standard feature, letting owners compensate for heavier loads in the bed, and the car gained a collapsible steering column as standard equipment along with the option of front disc brakes — both meaningful safety upgrades for a vehicle that was, at its core, still a work truck underneath the trim. The 396-cubic-inch big-block carried over into 1967 in its base L35 state of tune, producing 325 horsepower. A genuine SS396-badged model wouldn’t actually arrive on the El Camino until 1968, but the big-block option was already turning the truck into a serious performer a year ahead of the badge catching up to it.

The Transmission Choices Buyers Actually Faced

Any El Camino that year could be ordered with a wide variety of engine and transmission combinations, giving buyers a genuinely broad menu that ranged from six-cylinder economy hauling to serious big-block performance, all wearing the same sheet metal and badge. Transmission choices reflected that same range: buyers could select the three-speed Turbo Hydra-matic TH400 automatic, the two-speed Powerglide, or one of two four-speed manual gearboxes — the wide-ratio M20 built for higher top speed, or the close-ratio M21 tuned for quicker acceleration off the line. A column-mounted three-speed manual remained the base transmission for buyers who wanted the simplest, most affordable configuration available.

Living With a Car-Based Pickup Day to Day

Living with a second-generation El Camino meant accepting some genuine truck-like compromises alongside the performance. The load bed limited how the rear suspension could be tuned compared to a true Chevelle, and buyers hauling anything heavy in the bed had to contend with a rear end that behaved differently unloaded versus loaded — part of why the adjustable air shocks introduced for 1967 mattered as much as they did to owners who actually used the truck bed for its intended purpose rather than treating it as a styling gimmick.

Common Trouble Spots Buyers Should Know Today

Surviving examples from this generation face some predictable trouble spots today: rust around the bed-to-cab seam and the lower rear quarters is common on cars that spent decades doing actual work, and big-block-equipped cars in particular are worth inspecting closely for frame stress near the rear leaf-spring mounts, a known weak point when a 396 was paired with hard use in the bed. Buyers shopping this generation are well served checking those specific areas before assuming a clean-looking exterior tells the whole story.

What a Correct SS396 Example Commands Today

A documented, numbers-matching SS396 example commands a real premium over a base six-cylinder truck today, and the gap between the two is wider than it might first appear, since so many six-cylinder and small-block El Caminos were used up as genuine work trucks and never survived in driveable condition. A correct 1966 or 1967 SS396, by contrast, was more often kept, cared for, or eventually restored specifically because its owners recognized what they had — which is exactly why clean survivors of the big-block cars are considerably harder to find today than their original production numbers alone would suggest.

A Utility Vehicle That Collectors Now Chase

Today, El Caminos from this generation occupy an interesting niche in the collector market, sitting between full muscle car values and the more affordable classic truck segment. A well-preserved 1966 or 1967 model with the big-block 396 tends to draw the strongest interest, since it combines genuine muscle car performance with the practicality and visual novelty of a car-based pickup — a combination that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in Chevrolet’s lineup from this era.

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