Junkyard Gem: 1983 GMC Caballero

Everyone knows about the

Chevrolet El Camino

, including the later 1982-1987 G-Body models, but the El Camino’s GMC-branded siblings seem to remain in obscurity. Known as the

GMC Sprint

for the 1971 through 1977 model years and the

GMC Caballero

after that, these cartrucks were virtually identical to their better-known

Chevrolet

brethren but sold in much smaller quantities. With all the junkyard explorations I do, I hadn’t seen a Caballero in

decades

, so this ’83 I found a few months back in Colorado came as a noteworthy

Junkyard Gem

.

This one lived a hard life, and the harsh Colorado sun did its interior no favors.

The Caballero got the 3.8-liter

Buick V6

as its base engine for 1983, rated at 110 horsepower. The General finally sprang for an even-fire crankshaft for the

Buick

V6 in 1977 (prior to that, it used a cut-down V8 crank, with resulting rough running), so it wasn’t a bad powerplant for a light truck in 1983.

GM

really got its money’s worth out of this HVAC control panel, variations of which appeared in GM machinery for decades.

This cartruck doesn’t have serious rust, so it looks like

Rusty Jones

did his job (or maybe it was eastern Colorado’s single-digit humidity and lack of winter road salt).

I used the Caballero as a test subject for my newly-obtained high-end (for 1974)

Canon 110ED film camera

.

This dealer-promo film covers the 1983 El Camino, but it’s close enough for Caballero use. You’ll dig the macho-voiced narrator’s purple jacket/yellow shirt combination.