A 2000 EL CAMINO

A Unique Island Ride: Wyatt Freitas’s Custom ’83 Chevrolet El Camino

Regardless of where high school student Wyatt A.K. Freitas of Makawao, Hawaii, drives his very unique ’83 Chevrolet El Camino around the island, he always gets the same response: “I didn’t know that Chevrolet made a 2000 El Camino.” Of course, we know that they didn’t, but maybe Chevrolet should have.

The History of the Chevrolet El Camino

The fact of the matter is that after 28 years of production, the last Chevrolet El Camino rolled off of the GM assembly line in Toluca, Mexico, in 1984. But the end of the El Camino did not keep a company like Fullerton, California’s Lauren Engineering from coming up with their own El Camino ground-effects kit, an unusual sort of assembly that is based on the NASCAR version of the ’00 model Chevrolet Lumina.

A Father’s Gift Becomes a Unique Project

“My father, Philbert Freitas, wanted me to have something nice for my first car, but it had to be something different from all the rest of the guy cars I hang with. A couple of years ago, he found this 65,000-mile ’83 Chevrolet El Camino. The car was in very good mechanical condition, and it had no rust or sheetmetal damage,” Freitas says.

Admittedly, the younger Freitas didn’t show much interest in the El Camino at first—that is, until his father ordered one of Lauren Engineering’s ’00 NASCAR Lumina ground-effects kits; that changed the whole deal!

Customizing the El Camino

Fellow Maui Classic Cruiser member Clifford Figueroa owns a shop in Makawao, Hawaii, where “Figgie” expertly bolted up and bonded all of the Lauren fiberglass body panels to the El Camino’s factory sheetmetal. Then Freitas’s uncle, James Yip Chow, performed all of the painstaking bodywork. In the process, Yip Chow shaved the El Camino’s tailgate and re-located the license plate to the rear bumper area. He then sprayed the light-duty hauler in DuPont Chevrolet Orange and Driftwood Silver.

Eye-Catching Paint and Wheels

Of course, this two-tone paint scheme makes a pretty strong visual statement once it’s teamed up with a set of 15×8-inch Boyd Coddington Smoothie wheels and P215/65xR15 and P225/70xR15 Dunlop Qualifier GT high-performance radial rubber.

Performance Upgrades Under the Hood

Mechanically, the ’83 retains the original 305cid Chevrolet small-block V-8, but it has been upgraded with the installation of an Edelbrock Performer intake, a Carter AFB 4-bbl carburetor, an Edelbrock engine dress-up kit, and Flowmaster mufflers. Of course, plans call for young Freitas to swap out the 305 small block for a big block, but for the time being, the car is sanitary and is being driven daily until the new powerplant is complete and until old dad is totally convinced that the younger Freitas shows the proper care and respect for this unique island treasure.

Keeping the Interior and Adding Audio

The El Camino still retains the factory burgundy vinyl interior. However, no teenager’s car would be complete without a great audio system, so Freitas had Kahului, Maui’s Kamikaze Electronics install a full Pioneer AM/FM/CD setup.

Gratitude for the Team Effort

“This is the greatest gift I’ve ever received,” Freitas says. “I would like to thank Clifford Figueroa for all the hard work he’s done on this project. He’s the master! I would also like to thank my uncle James for the outstanding paint job and the expert bodywork. And of course, none of this would have been possible without my father’s money and support. I owe him big time!”

Looking Ahead: Future Mods in the Works

And now that Freitas is earning his bones with the car, he will no doubt get the “okay” nod to further the Chevy’s list of mods, and that includes the big-block power.