Totally Awesome Elky

According to Meltzer, the El Camino sat for the next 11 years, taking up space in the corner of the shop while he helped his son Rod build a very nice ’90 1/2-ton Chevy full custom pickup. And if that wasn’t enough, he helped younger son Brad completely update his Camaro and perform a full frame-off restoration on a ’60 Corvette.

“It was beginning to look like the El Camino would never get finished,” he says. Then four years ago, Meltzer simply jumped back in feet first. “As you get older, you get a little wiser,” he says. “We sold the big motor and cut out the rollcage and the entire pickup bed. We built a completely new chassis and converted the El Camino back into a street car like it should have been in the first place.”

As far as the chassis is concerned, Meltzer and son Brad fashioned a new set of longitudinal framerails out of 2×4-inch, 0.180-wall thickness box tubing, adding the necessary box tube rear frame kick-ups and round-tube crossmembers along the way. These rails are joined together with a late-model Chevelle front frame clip, which features a Chevelle independent front suspension, QA1 12-way adjustable shocks, Chevelle power steering and ’86 Chevrolet Monte Carlo power front disc brakes. To get the proper ride height, a set of specific-rate, low-profile Detroit Spring coil springs were also added.

Rear suspension on the car consists of a big-bearing, 3.50:1 NI-geared, Moser 31-spline axle-equipped Ford 9-inch rear suspended by a Meltzer four-bar suspension and QA1 12-way-adjustable coilover shocks. The rear brakes are Ford 11-inch LTD discs. Wheels and tires consist of a set of 17×7-inch American Racing Torq-Thrust IIs in front and 15×14-inch American Racing Torq-Thrust II’s on the rear rolling on P215/45xZR17-inch Falken radials in front and 29.5×15-inch Hoosier Pro Street rubber on the rear.