23: El Camino

Yes, dear reader, the El Camino represents a high (or is it low?) point in gnomish automotive engineering. The more sensitive of you might protest: "How can a semi-infamous, semi-legendary muscle car, of all things, be gnomish? Do gnomes even drive muscle cars?" And my answer is simply this: if they did drive cars, gnomes would drive El Caminos.

The El Camino, by its very nature, embodies gnomish nonsensical design aesthetics -- is it a truck? Is it a car? Is it both? Is it neither? Is it all of these things, and, yet, is also less than those things, too? Why, yes.

It is an El Camino. The neither here-nor-there aspect of the El Camino is the "tell" that reveals the gnomish design sensibilities embedded in it. The El Camino is the gnome masquerading as a badass, which shows why the car design was such an odd and contradictory fit.

While not the only gnomish vehicle out there (again, the unicycle comes directly to mind), few cars have ever skated close to the aesthetic abyss that is gnomish design sensibilities like the El Camino. There are other gnomish automobiles out there, but I had to start with the Elvis Presley of gnomish wheels. "El Camino" literally means "The Path" or "The Way." And it surely guarantees that on the road to gnomish living, you will get there fastest driving one of these babies.