GM Offers Condition To Bring Back El Camino

On May 4, Twitter user Michael Knower @chevyavalanche tweeted out a simple request to @JoelEwanick, the chief marketing officer at GM: “I want a new El Camino. Badly. Please!”

That drew a response from Ewanick, who told Knower, “well, we need you and 100,000 more of your best friends.”

Anyone who knows the power of Twitter can guess what happened next. The tweet made its way to El Camino fans around the globe and in record time, there were thousands of tweets about the the car that has long been rumored to be making a comeback.

In fact, there were so many tweets that the website, Jalopnik.com jumped on the bandwagon and tweeted to their 21,000 plus fans that “GM will bring back the El Camino if 100,000 people comment” on their post. Hours later, the site drew over 1,000 comments about the El Camino.

Despite the tweets creating a buzz, is the El Camino truly a priority for GM? While Joel Ewanick certainly dangled the carrot out there, it seems more like a good public relations play than anything else.

On Thursday, El Camino fan, @alexhoff, tweeted to Ewanick, “New El Camino. Do it.” and Ewanick’s response indicates that it’s not likely to happen, tweeting back:

“Wish it were that easy, we need to develop our fuel efficient vehicles first! Priorities!”

The Chevrolet El Camino made its debut in 1959 and was a hopeful rival for the Ford Ranchero that arrived on the scene in two years prior. While it didn’t outsell other Ford products in ‘59, Chevy sold 22,246 El Caminos in its first year, beating Ford's 14,169 in Ranchero sales.

The El Camino went through changes over the years, with the fifth generation of this car-truck ending production in 1987. For now, enthusiast can find the Chevrolet El Camino appearing at custom car shows as a “muscle car” or even customized as a hot rod in a variety of racing venues. There are also many still used as daily drivers and they aren’t hard to spot with their unique styling.

Twitter has certainly driven up interest about a possible come back of Chevy’s classic El Camino. But it’s not likely that the company will put this on their hot list if creating cars with good fuel economy is a bigger priority, especially with the gas prices rising at the pump.

Still, it’s interesting to see how big the fan base is for the El Camino. Perhaps Chevrolet will take this into consideration and make it a hybrid vehicle that pleases enthusiasts and those looking for better gas mileage.