True Connections

In this months article we thought we’d let our readers know of some new items that will be coming out this year. For many years the owners of 1964-1967 El Caminos have fought the battle to find good cab moldings. Cab moldings are the 4 large chrome die cast pieces that connect to the bed rails and go up and over the back window on the cab. Originals can be found at swap meets but it seems they always have pitts in them, and when stripped of the original chrome the pitts are always larger underneath which causes rechroming to be a problem. In order to get a flat surface, the molding is plated with copper and ground down several times, which if you’re not careful, can cause the molding to warp and become wavy. There are many El Caminos out there running around with cab moldings that have quarter inch gaps between them and the body. Fortunately the reproductions are not far away. We haven’t had any word they were working on reproducing them, yet recently, we received a set of samples that looked very good. We just happened to have the shell of a 65 El Camino laying around with which we test fitted the sample cab moldings and they fit just as good as the originals. The pieces mate up together nicely and fit the body perfectly, but the great thing is that there were no gaps and no waviness at all. Some may wonder what took so long to reproduce them and we constantly get asked why they don’t produce this or that, and the answer is dollars. The mold to produce each of these cab moldings run in the tens of thousands of dollars, so it takes someone who is willing to put a lot of money out there and wait at least a year for production to start, then even longer while you sell enough items just to break even. Now that the samples have been okayed it should only take 3 or 4 months for the moldings to become available. Another long awaited item that is very difficult to come by is the 1964 El Camino taillight reflector. This is a small chrome die cast piece that divides the taillight and backup light. They have a round red reflector lens in the middle that is currently available, but the chrome die cast piece is always missing or cracked, and of course being made of poor quality material, pitts are a problem with these pieces also. They are so hard to find that really good used ones have sold for $200 for the pair and we’ve had many customers looking for a set because theirs have been stolen. Fortunately these pieces are also slated to be reproduced and while we have not seen samples the manufacturers have told us they are only 4 or 5 months away, so cross your fingers and we may get lucky. There are many other pieces that are due to be available this year so we’re planning on keeping you posted with another article next month and in up coming issues we continue our 40th anniversary tribute to the 1965 Chevelle with articles on the L-79 option.