Over the years, Chevrolet itself made some incredible machines, including rare bits of wonderful engineering that ended gems in today’s collector market. But there are times when it’s not Chevrolet itself we should thank for incredible… Chevrolets.
Look all you want, you’ll never find the El Morocco nameplate in Chevy’s factory family album. It never made a car named so, and yet the world has such a moniker, a dream car for most of today’s car collectors.
El Morocco is the identification a Canadian businessman named Reuben Allender gave to a very limited run of customized 1956 and 1957 Tri-Fives. And by customized, we mean personally transformed by Allender into luxury bowtie machines, closer is his view to the Cadillacs of the age he held so dear.
The man ended up making just about 32 of them in the two years, with the 1956 models being based on the Bel Air, and the 1957 ones on the Two-Ten. The latter batch is still around in a bit larger numbers (around ten of them are known to exist), but there’s only one Bel Air El Morocco from 1956, and it’s the one we have here.
For those of you who have been watching our coverage of incredible machines going under the hammer over the past few years, this El Morocco might seem a bit familiar. That’s because it was supposed to sell during an auction at the end of last year, but for some reason it disappeared from the public eye, not leaving behind any hints of what happened to it.
It resurfaced now on the lot of cars going that will sell during the Mecum auction in Kissimmee, Florida, in the first few days of next year, as the “only original 1956 El Morocco known to exist.” The seller, the Marv Siesel Collection, does not inform us on how much it expects to get for it.
The car is in the exact same condition it was in, a year ago. It boasts the correct white paint and upholstery, brought back to their former shine thanks to the restoration process it went through a while back, after being retrieved from a Texas alley, where it lay abandoned, in the 1970s.
The 265-ci (4.3-liter) engine tied to a two-speed automatic transmission shows just 108 miles (174 km) since restoration was completed, and the car is going complete with the original 1956 Texas inspection sticker.
We’ll come back on the unique El Morocco in January, after we’ve learned for how much it sold. That is, if it makes it that far this time.