Auto World 1967 Chevrolet El Camino and 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS and Johnny Lightning 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS

Auto World has finally released some long-overdue castings in 2017 that were delayed when Auto World deleted two of their lines to bring in the revived Johnny Lightning and Racing Champions Mint castings in 2016.  The Chevelle and El Camino castings were made with two different tools to start with; one for the 1966 model year that has already been released and now the 1967 versions.

1967 Chevrolet El Camino

The El Camino is Chevrolet’s long-serving car-based pickup that returned in 1964 with the new Chevelle Malibu platform.  It was at this point that the El Camino would get some help with the Chevelle platform to move into the muscle car era with lots of power and style.  1967 brought on a new look that now has the front fenders thrusting forward past the front grille, redesigned taillights that now wrap around the rear fender and the tailgate now gets a black stripe going across.  The interior carries over from 1966 with the exception of a sporty three-spoke steering wheel.  The engine is a 396 CID V8 that produces 370 horsepower through a 4-speed manual transmission to the rear wheels.  Since the body is shared with the Chevelle wagon the rear bed has a cover over the rear seat footwell of the wagon as an extra storage space area.

The light blue of this basic deluxe casting looks good and just like the 1966 that I profiled here a few years ago there is no opening parts, a plastic base, and plastic tires on cool mag wheels.  The front has a detailed grille with four round headlights, CHEVROLET across the edge of the hood, and signal lights now integrated into the front bumper scoops.  The hood has fewer lines than the 1966 with crisper lines on the hood and along the sides where it joins chrome trim, while the cargo bed area is functional and has nicely detailed bed ridges.  The rear has detailed taillights, black tailgate strip, and El Camino on the rear fenders.  Both El Camino’s share the same plastic base that has detailed engine, drivetrain, suspension, exhaust system, and rear fuel tank; on the other hand the interior is poorly done as while it has the detailed bucket seats, steering wheel, door panels, and floor shifter, the dashboard is completely blank because this interior piece is shared with the 1966 El Camino.  If a little more effort was put into the dashboard, an opening hood, and using metal base and rubber tires this would be one awesome casting by Auto World.

1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS

On the other hand there’s no problem with the amount of quality found in the 1967 Chevelle SS found in the premium line.  What is nice about this one is that Auto World made the interior’s, engine’s, and body completely different from the 1966 Chevelle that they also make and the only component sharing is the base and gray 5-spoke wheel covers with redline rubber tires.  Just like the El Camino the Chevelle also shares the same styling upgrades for 1967 and the same 396 V8 motor; here you can open the hood to see the silver motor and air cleaner with detailed cooling hoses and alternator.  The front has a detailed grille with SS logo in the center, four round headlights, green license plate on the front bumper next to the signal lights, and 396 flags on the front fenders.  The hood gains dual side vents with silver trim while the sides have more silver trim and Super Sport along the rear fenders, moving toward the back there is wrap-around taillights with chrome trim, black valence panel with SS logo, and another green license plate on the rear bumper next to reverse lamps.  The base underneath is in metal and while it does not have the depth of details like the El Camino it does have all of the proper drivetrain, exhaust systems and frame detail points.  The interior has detailed front bucket seats, rear bench seat, door panels, center console with shifter and tachometer just ahead of the shifter, 3-spoke steering wheel, and dashboard layout with detailed control knobs.

Now this is not the first time I’ve enjoyed the 1967 Chevelle in small scale as my first encounter was the Johnny Lightning casting in this amazing blue with darker blue vinyl top and rallye chrome wheels with white stripe rubber tires.  The details between Johnny Lightning and Auto World are close as the latter has more crisper detailing, but the Johnny Lightning uses an eggcrate grille up front, the hood edge is part of the grille line, and CHEVELLE is much higher up on the hood edge.  At the rear the recessed rear window in the flowing C-pillars are much more noticeable than in the Auto World casting, while the metal base is much simpler, yet effective on what it shows.  The blue interior has the same amount of detailing as the Auto World example with one omission: the shifter handle is missing from the center console; the engine bay area has fewer hoses detailed and missing the drive belt alternator but it does use orange paint on the engine block to make the engine seem more realistic.  Now this blue one was from an earlier Chevy Thunder release with a picture card, the orange one is from a later release that contains a key and while it loses the rubber tires and vinyl roof it looks awesome in these chrome 8-dot wheels with thicker rubber at the rear for a raked appearance.  Either way these are two great castings based on the 1967 Chevelle and despite the competition between the two brands as long as they do different deco’s they should both do just fine.