A good friend of mine passed away recently and left behind a 1979 El Camino Super Sport and I know very little about it. Is there a way for me to check the vin to verify if this is an SS and if this motor is correct. I would be looking for a rough value as well, his wife would like to sell. Any help would be appreciated.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I believe if you decode the cowl tag or the vin it might be able to tell you if it's an ss or not but I'm not sure on newer cars. I know if you found a build sheet in the car that would for sure tell you that it is a true ss. As for the motor there should be some numbers in front of the passenger side cylinder head stamped on the top of the block. You can decode these and it will tell you everything and some like mine actually have a number that matches the vin but my motor is out of a 1970 caprice. Hope you have luck finding everything. Heres a website that will help out with the number locations. http://www.v8extremo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=168

Sorry to here you lost a friend.
Doesn't 1979 have a RPO sticker that shows SS options?

i think the 79 SS option was cosmetic not performance based,Also Motor Was 3.8L V6