1986 Chevrolet El Camino SS Sport: Two GM Documents Disagree on Horsepower

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 "SS Sport Decor" for 1986, 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, a gap the record's later conflicts section addresses only for the total car count, not the SS share.¹

This record's own key facts state that Choo Choo Customs of Chattanooga produced an El Camino SS conversion for GM from mid-1983 through the end of 1987 production, and that Chevrolet priced the 1986 El Camino SS Sport, model 1GW80 with Z15, at $9,885.00 MSRP against $9,572.00 for the base El Camino at the start of the model year, with the 305 V8 adding $390.00 on top of either figure.¹

This record's own conflicts section documents two separate disputes for 1986. The first is an engine-rating disagreement within GM's own documentation: the El Camino/Caballero data page rates the LB4 4.3 V6 at 130 horsepower and 210 lb-ft, while an MVMA specifications form covering the shared Monte Carlo/El Camino platform, issued the same month, rates the identical engine at 140 horsepower and 225 lb-ft; the record's own treatment notes that two GM documents from the same month disagree and shows both rather than choosing one.

This record's own conflicts section also documents a production-total dispute: 16,229 built per one Old Cars Weekly article against 23,767 sold per an earlier article from the same magazine five years apart, with the record's own treatment explaining the two figures differ in basis, built versus sold, and that neither article states its own underlying source; a Wikipedia table separately gives a third figure, 21,508, which this record holds as an unpublished lead rather than a third conflicting claim in the conflicts array itself, keeping the two-way conflict and the third unverified figure in separate parts of the record.^2,3

This record's own engines section documents the 130-horsepower LB4 262 V6 standard and the 150-horsepower LG4 305 V8 optional at $390.00, both figures carrying the same rating in California per this record's own fields. Its transmissions section documents the MX1 three-speed automatic standard at no charge and the MXO four-speed overdrive automatic optional at $175.00, a separate charge from the $390.00 the record's own key facts and engines section both document for the LG4 305 V8.

This record's own options section documents the D91 Conquista package at $225.00, explicitly not combinable with Z15, and the YF5 California emission requirements at $99.00, alongside the LG4 305 engine option repeated at $390.00 from the engines section, each of the three priced individually rather than bundled. This record's own performance and identification sections are both empty for 1986, a gap it carries without substitution even though its conflicts section is unusually well developed, carrying both an engine-rating dispute and a production-total dispute in the same year.