1979 Chevrolet El Camino Super Sport: The Royal Knight Package Arrives

This record's own overview states that Tradecraft Specialties lists RPO Z15 as the El Camino's Super Sport package throughout the 1978-1987 run, named simply "Super Sport" for 1979, and describes it as up-level trim with SS badging and rally wheels rather than a distinct model line. This record's own dek identifies the car as the fifth-generation El Camino, with no production count from a verifiable source found for the SS package itself.¹

This record's own key facts state that Tradecraft Specialties reports 2,815 Royal Knights for 1979, the Royal Knight package's first year, and that Chevrolet priced the 1979 El Camino Super Sport, model 1AW80 with Z15, at $5,209.80 MSRP against $5,007.80 for the base 1AW80, for cars built from January 2, 1979. They add that the Royal Knight option, RPO Z16 at $68.00, was new for 1979, offered on Super Sport models with single-tone paint in ten colors, striping, and a hood decal.¹

This record's own production rows carry the 2,815-unit Royal Knight figure, sourced directly to Tradecraft Specialties and marked "reported" rather than estimated, alongside a separately sourced 58,008-unit total for all El Caminos that the record's own note says is not an SS count and whose original source is unnamed by the article that reports it. The production notes state plainly that no Chevrolet production report was seen for this year, so an El Camino SS-specific count exists only as an unverified lead rather than a row in this record's own production table.^1,2

This record's own unpublished leads section flags a Wikipedia claim of 58,008 total production with 11,371 SS units, sourced to a page that redirected to a paid-access gateway and so could not be verified, the same lineage problem this record's own production notes describe for the year's total-production figure. This record's own conflicts section is empty for 1979, with no disputed figure flagged anywhere else in the record; every price and production count this record carries is attributed to exactly one source rather than reconciled across two.²

This record's own engines section documents a 94-horsepower L26 200 V6 standard outside California, a 115-horsepower LD5 231 V6 for California only, a 125-horsepower L39 267 V8 optional outside California, a 160-horsepower LG4 305 V8 optional with a lower California rating, and a 165-horsepower LM1 350 V8 optional only with high-altitude emissions equipment and the automatic transmission. Its transmissions section documents a standard three-speed limited to the 200 V6, a four-speed manual for the 267 and 305 V8s outside California, and an automatic that the record notes was the only transmission offered with the 231 or the 350.

This record's own specifications section documents the car's wheelbase from the GM information kit's side-view dimensions page, and this record's own performance and identification sections are both empty for 1979. Its prices section documents both the base and Super Sport MSRPs from the same February 16, 1979 price schedule, keeping the two figures separately labeled rather than blended into a single average price for the model year, with the $202.00 difference between them left as a plain subtraction rather than stated outright anywhere in the record's own text.