General Motors appears to be reviving the El Camino nameplate for North America, this time on an Australian-made variant of the Holden Commodore Ute (for utility or pickup truck).
Enthusiast blogger website GM Authority has been poking around in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (discovering in the process the trademarked Nomad nameplate, as in ’57 Chevrolet two-door wagon, had been renewed) and found an El Camino trademark application filed on 9 August, 2012.
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There have been rumours the Chevrolet El Camino – a pickup spinoff off a saloon car made in North America between 1959 and 1977 would return as an American variant of the Commodore Ute/HSV Maloo and pick up where the stillborn Pontiac G8 ST left off, the website noted.
Holden built a Pontiac GTO variant of its Commodore-derived Monaro coupe for the now defunct US brand and followed up with the G8 sedan when the Commodore was redesigned. A G8 ST ‘El Camino’ was reportedly planned before GM pulled the plug on Pontiac and went through government-assisted Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Motor Authority said: “If we were to connect the dots, both the Chevrolet Nomad sport wagon and El Camino ute would be derivatives of the upcoming Chevrolet SS sport sedan, which is a spin-off from the Holden Commodore sedan. For GM performance enthusiasts, each model is something to get very excited about.”
