The story of Skyelor’s 1965 El Camino. Skyelor lives in Moore, Oklahoma where every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are cruising nights in his town. When covid started shutting everything down his town started cruising and packing the streets and local restaurants.
At the time, all he had was a Harley Davidson street glide and he tried cruising with all the cars. His boss and his friends all had hot rods, and it just wasn’t a good time. So he set out to trade the bike for a hotrod. After a few months, he finally found a gentleman down in Mcalester, Oklahoma that had a 1965 El Camino, and they chatted. He said he would trade, so he brought the El Camino up to him from about 1.5 hrs away, and they made the trade.
Within the first 3 days, that he owned the 1965 El Camino, he had stripped the interior and drivetrain and re-did everything as best as he and his friends that helped him could do. He could afford parts to upgrade the car. It’s got dodge neon seats re-upholstered at his shop, an all-new carpet, and a headliner with lizard skid sound deadener installed. New gauges and a new headliner. The drivetrain was upgraded from the original 283/ Powerglide to an sbc 408 with th350 and a small stall, budget-friendly what he could afford at the time.
It’s had several new sets of wheels on it, and he’s finally stopped with some weld wheels that he got from a friend of a friend that he cleaned up. It’s got new wiring and a fuel system with a new fuel tank as well.
For his 1st hotrod, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun working on it with his friends and cruising with 100s of cars up and down the streets. Parking at the local hot rod diner, eating a good old-fashioned hamburger, and just talking and laughing and checking out each other’s cars until the sun goes down and the neon lights from the diner light up the streets.
It’s an sbc 408 with forged rods and pistons with a stock steel crank. Brawler 750 carb with Holley blue fuel pump. Transmission is a th350 with a 2000 stall converter.
The 1965 El Camino gets a lot of attention, and out of hundreds of hotrods that cruise the town, there are only maybe 3 or 4 in the whole group you’ll see.
In the future for his 1965 El Camino, he’d really like to address the suspension with some coil overs on the front and rear with some new upper and lower control arms on the rear as well. It still has the original coil springs and new shocks but rides like an old Cadillac.. haha.
