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...................................HISTORY.........................................

I've owned my El Camino since since 1981 when we purchased it in Duluth, MN from the second owner. It only had 6034 original miles on it.

The original owner's name was LeRoy "Sonny" Green. He special ordered the El Camino through the Arrow Chevrolet Company in Duluth, MN and took delivery of it in November of 1969. It was ordered with the special high performance "L78" 375 horsepower 396 engine which was equiped with a Holley carburetor, low rise aluminum intake manifold, rectangle port heads, solid lift camshaft, steel crank, 3/8" dimpled rods, 4-bolt main block, and deep groove pulleys.

Other items checked off on the order form were an M21 4-speed manual transmission, 3.55 positraction rear differential, auxillary lighting group, instrument panel gauges, cushion grip steering wheel, cowl induction hood, and hood stripe. At the time, the L78 396 was the highest horsepower engine you could get in an El Camino or Chevelle. 2144 was the combined total of El Caminos & Chevelles ordered with that engine making it even more rare than the mighty LS6 454. How many of that 2144 were El Caminos? Educated estimates are around 250 making it a very rare vehicle. The L78 option was canceled with the introduction of the LS6 option and the last L78 equiped cars rolled off the assembly line in December 1969.

This is a scanned image of the buildsheet.

Sonny Green was sort of a legend in Duluth and had several classic Chevy vehicles. He drove the El Camino on the street for a short time before turning it into a drag car. He had "Schmuck's Truck" painted on the quarter panels. The abuse of full throttle dragstrip runs finally took its toll on the engine with a rod taking an exit out the side of the block.

These pictures would have been taken somewhere between 1970 & 1973 before the original engine was destroyed.

Sonny ordered a brand new L88 crate engine as a replacement but never installed it. The car sat for several years before being sold to Walter Peterson in 1978. Walter installed the L88 and went a little farther by installing a six point roll cage and stripping as much of the interior out as possible. Luckily he kept all the parts. Well, most of them. He sold the original transmission and clutch to a friend. Thankfully, he kept the tranny and after 13 years, I was able to track him down and buy it from him.

Walter drag raced the car for a few years running a best 1/4 mile E.T. of 11.36@116. He wanted to go faster but didn't want to cut up the El Camino anymore than it already was. So, he bought a tube frame 1969 Camaro rolling chassis and put the L88 in it. Then, he put the El Camino up for sale so he could buy a trailer for the Camaro.

That's where my Father and I entered the picture. Walter lived only a block away and always had the El Camino parked outside his house. When it went up for sale, my Dad was interested immediately. I had virtually zero knowledge of cars at the time but that was to change very quickly. My Dad thought it would be a good father/son project so we bought it. It had no engine or transmission. The interior was gutted and we got two big boxes of parts for the car. It also had, what I was to find out later, totally unstreetable 5.38 gears in the rearend. However, they were mounted on a nice Eaton 4 series positraction carrier.

Here's how it looked in 1981 when we towed it home.

Notice the lower body side moldings. It also has a woodgrain insert on the tailgate. Very unusual for a 70 El Camino SS. I've never seen another one that had them except for the El Camino SS shown in Chevy's own promotional literature. It doesn't show the tailgate though. You can see the photo by clicking here.

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Here's a link to a video I made in 1986 that shows some pretty important details about the car:

1986 Video

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My Dad and I spent the rest of the summer putting it back together. I still laugh when I think back to when I was trying to install the dash wiring harness. My learning curve was pretty steep. I soon started meeting people who knew the car. I got involved with the local hotrodders and cruisers and became good friends with a guy named John Peterson who owned a 1969 big block Chevelle at the time. You won't find a bigger gearhead than Johnny. It didn't take him long to set me straight on the El Camino. One ride in his Chevelle and my life was changed forever.

These pictures were taken around 1991-1992 when, following the advice of several people in the car hobby, I decided to restore the car. That's a correctly built and numbered L78 on the engine stand. The SR-71 pictures were taken on Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. After moving back to Minnesota in 1992, the car sat in storage for 8 years while I played around with other cars. I never cared for it in it's stock configuration. So, in 2000 for it's 30th birthday, I decided to yank the engine & tranny and replaced it with the 496. I also had it repainted for the first time in it's life.

This was taken in the early 80's in the parking lot of Denfeld High School in Duluth, MN. Hey, what can I say. I was a kid once!