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1967 396 Dragmaster El Camino, Drag Racing Historical Vehicle on 2040-cars

Year:1967 Mileage:200000
Location:

1967 Chevrolet El Camino 396- DRAGMASTER Dode Martin's personal daily driver shop truck from 1970-1995. Dode bought this factory 396 4 Speed Marina Blue with Black bench seat interior El Camino in 1970 less engine and trans. There just happened to be a nasty 440 Chrysler engine with a 727 automatic sitting in his shop, so Dode decided to fit it into the El Camino. A lot of parts custom worked by Dode back in 1970 are still on it, however the 440 and 727 were removed back in the late 1990's for a SBC conversion. The GM rally wheels were widened by Dode with chrome centers and gold rims. The rear trailing arms were boxed by Dode. Dode stitched up the door panels after personally painting the truck in traditional Dragmaster gold. Dode told me the gold paint is 1956 Chevrolet Grecian Gold and the red he used on his DART dragsters and the famous TWO THING twin supercharged SBC front engine rail is 1957 Chevrolet Matador Red. I obtained permission from Dode to place the DRAGMASTER decals on the doors and I planned to do a frame up build and incorporate more DRAGMASTER style to the El Camino with the red. I pulled the SBC and auto trans out and located a date matching fresh .040 over 396 block to match the truck. The block is included with the Camino. No trans. The original 12 bolt posi rear axle is still in it. The El Camino has never been wrecked, however the hood has some filler in the front peak due to Dode moving the truck in his shop while sitting on a bucket and tapping a work bench in front of him when he fell off the bucket. That happened before the Camino was painted gold. Dode told me the first paint he put on it was solid black around 1970 or so. The fenders, doors and rest of the body are original sheetmetal. There is very little rust in this El Camino- there is a little in the lower back window jamb. 

There is a State of California label in the left door jamb that confirms a 440 Chrysler and Automatic were in it up to 1995, when the the truck was required to pass a smog check in order to sell it. Dode swapped out the 12:1 compression 440 for a more stock version. Dode told me the nasty 440 was sold to a MOPAR guy for a race car restoration. That 440 was likely part of the Dodge Chargers effort from the early 1960's. 

The next owner had a hot rod shop (Hot Rods and Custom Stuff; Escondido, CA) swap in a SBC and 700R4 for daily driving.

I bought the El Camino in 2012 with intentions to keep it, however that was 2 weeks prior to my daughter being born and I have had zero time to work on it. I paid four thousand more for it then than I am asking for it here, so my listing price is absolutely as low as I am willing to sell it for. 

Last 2 pics were scans of prints Dode let me borrow from his personal files- they show the Camino as it was about 25 years ago. The black license plates were changed out by the DMV around 1995 based on documentation I have.

The El Camino is also listed for sale locally therefore I retain the right to end the auction if no bids have been placed.

Auto blog

Supercharged 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 takes the C7 beyond the ZR1

Mon, 13 Jan 2014



The Z06 is just about everything we got in the last ZR1, but better.
After a bright-yellow false start, here is the real thing: the fourth-generation, 2015 Corvette Z06. If Chevrolet makes a ZR1 version of the C7 Corvette, it's going to be absolutely mega, because the Z06 is just about everything we got in the last ZR1, but better.

Chevrolet planning low-cost Corvette under Stingray?

Wed, 27 Feb 2013

If you're burnt out on musings about the Chevrolet Corvette, you'll want to go ahead and skip this post. Motor Trend reports General Motors is hard at work on a low-cost version of the seventh-generation sports car for 2015. Rumored to be called the Corvette Coupe, the car will forgo the Stingray and skip the 450-horsepower 6.2-liter V8 engine in favor of a 5.3-liter V8 with under 400 ponies. If you're keeping track, that's a shade of the same engine found behind the headlights of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra.
The report also suggests the Coupe will receive a number of aesthetic tweaks to separate it from the Stingray, including different front and rear fascias as well as new front fenders and a rear diffuser. Motor Trend says the point of all this is to cut the car's price tag, which means we may see a Corvette on showroom floors for less than $50,000 if this car comes to fruition.

Chevy might've pulled out of NASCAR if it weren't for new Gen 6 car

Wed, 20 Feb 2013

We've been on the fence with NASCAR for some time now. On one hand, it's some of the closest racing anywhere in motorsports, with actual passing and door-handle-to-door-handle action as a matter of course. But on the other, it's become template racing - a personality-driven sport more about the drivers than any sort of loyalty to a particular automaker. The Car Of Tomorrow format really rammed that message home, with a racecar's identity coming down to little more than headlamp stickers slapped on the nose. That's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but we've wondered for some time what's in it for the automakers, who pay big money to stay in a series that has had little increasingly little do with street car sales, let alone innovation.
Apparently General Motors was beginning to wonder the same thing. In a new ESPN report, Rick Hendrick, team owner of Hendrick Motorsports, suggests that GM would have seriously considered leaving NASCAR if it wasn't for the move away from the COT to the new Gen 6 racer. According to Hendrick, GM North America boss Mark Reuss spearheaded the charge away from the 2007 COT and toward a racecar with clearer automaker ties - cars like the new Chevrolet SS racer shown above. Learn more about the fight for a closer-to-production look in the ESPN story at the link.
Now, if we could just get more rear-wheel drive V8 coupes into showrooms....