This ’72 El Camino Survives The Joplin Tornado

All automotive smack talk, quirkiness, and arrogance aside; nobody likes being involved with tornadoes –well apart from those storm chasers with a death wish, obviously. Car guys in particular despise them, as they’re only another potential obstacle that gets in the way of us protecting our pride and joys.

Unfortunately for the folks of Joplin, Missouri, a tornado found its way into their town on May, 22^nd and it literally left most of the area in rubble; tearing through houses and blowing cars around like they were leaves. In fact the storm was so ferocious, that over 120 members of society have lost their lives in the apocalyptical storm, and the town mourns their loss.

Sifting through the rubble rescue workers stumbled upon a ’72 El Camino belonging to Scottie Hackleman, a 25-year old construction worker who bought the car when he was a young lad of only 15 for $1500. Since that time, Mr. Hackleman built a 331cui displacement small block for it producing a claimed 500+hp, not once, but twice.

After years of building and beating on it, and while being stuck driving a Jeep Wrangler every day, Scottie finally decided to have the car restored to perfection since he felt it had earned that privilege after all of these years of abuse, and rightfully so.

Shortly after dropping the car off at a local body shop in downtown Joplin in March, some body work had already been performed on Scottie’s ride.

Tragically, after only a couple of months’ worth of work, disaster had struck, literally. But we’ll let Mr. Hackleman share some of the progress (prior to the tornado) courtesy of our friends at Jalopnik;

“We had just pulled the fenders off, and had got them hand filled and filed (weld and new metal only, none of that Bondo shit). I haven’t seen them, but I am guessing they are a total loss. They are in the back of the truck, but I don’t think they are baby’s-ass smooth anymore. The hood didn’t blow away and just has a few scratches.”

Evidentially, something the size of a refrigerator had struck the Elky, leaving a huge dent on the driver’s side of the bed and another on the passenger side door. The windshield and all of the windows were smashed out of the car as well, resulting in much more work than the A-body had initially required.

But Scottie is persistent in returning his car to its former glory, and for that we applaud him and wish him the best of luck in his pursuit of happiness. But all things considered, we think that Lady Luck may already be on his side.