(first posted 12/28/2013) South America is another parallel universe, and this rather crude three door F-Series based truck is a great example of that. So Cal Metro shot this in Argentina, and posted it at the Cohort. I’ve seen pictures of these before, but I can’t come up with their name right now. I’m sure someone else will. (Update: it was called a B-150). Here’s the rather different other side:
The three-door arrangement was of course also used on one generation of Chevrolet Suburban, from 1967-1972 (CC here). Chevy’s looked a bit slicker, for obvious reasons.
Looks like we have Curbside Classic’s first Ford B-150 and I assume it is a 1973-1979, but could be newer. Looks a bit thrown together and oddly proportioned, but I still am sometimes tempted to import a B-150 to the States when I am rolling in dough.
Thanks for the link to the Suburban, that is one of my favorite Curbside Classics.
B150; thanks. I’ll amend the title.
Saw this on the cohort when I was loading photos it looked a bit home made but I missed the 3door part, Its like they saw a 3 door Aussie Panelvan (Ambulance conversion) and cobbled one up for fun, Id forgotten about the 3 door Burban.
Speaking of Aussie Fords F-100/150/250 ambulance, I spotted some good pictures of them at http://pics.imcdb.org/0is113/vlcsnap295936wr8.110.jpg
And back to Argentina, I saw this screenshot of a Argentine F-100 converted into an ambulance, this one however is a 1981-86 body http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_355302-Ford-F-100-1982.html and there another and older Argentinian F-100 militairy ambulance photo on this Spanish website http://fdra.blogspot.ca/2011/04/sanidad-militar-ambulancias-en-el-ea.html
One more Argentine F-100/150/200 “Suburban” at http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle.php?id=354090
As for the Aussie ambulances, here the correct link ^^; http://www.flickr.com/photos/50415738@N04/sets/72157627666515477/detail/?page=8
The ambulances in Victoria Australia based on F trucks had a complete fabricated fibreglass rear body shell mounted on the cab chassis with a raised roof and looking more like a panel van. Maybe other states used a different set up, I know that Holden Kingswoods were used in Queensland and I could see why you’d need a third door for access, but I can’t recall seeing any F truck based Victorian ambulances with a third door.
If it’s loaded with a 300 six I would take it over the suburban. The 307 I had in my 69 chev made a pretty good boat anchor IMO so the Ford would probably win with me. Good find Paul and I think the three door arrangement makes a lot of sense. Being curb side would probably make it safer to load/offload younguns.
Theres no callout on the front guard to denote V8 so could be a 300 6, but I see no badges on it at all.
It probably has a 221 ci 6 cyl engine.
That’s just so bizarre. It looks like something cobbled together in someone’s garage. I have always wondered why Ford did not see the need to offer a competing vehicle to the Suburban for all those years, until the Expedition and Excess (Excursion) came along.
The Excursion was less an exercise in gross excess than it was an exercise in mismarketing. If it had been dubbed the “F-250 Wagon” (because let’s be honest, that’s really what it was) or something equally unsavory, and marketed it less towards hockey moms and more towards construction crews or other people who actually needed a vehicle that could hold 8-9 passengers while pulling 10,000 pounds, it might still be with us today.
I’ll second that, I never understood why they discontinued it.
They were grossly misused as Ego-Chariots for suburban housewives who would have been better off with a minivan or car based CUV-wagon-thing. But it could be good for an extra high margin 10-15k units per year on the F250-550 platform. Its just some extra roof and a 3rd seating road on a crew cab. Heck they could even offer it in a Tahoe sized 4 Door and have a Off Road Optimized 2 door called the Bronco.
This is a 1978. Ford switched to this grille style for 78/79 but the 79 and some late 78 models had the rectangular headlights, so the round lights on this mark it as a 78. Assuming of course that they didn’t do things different in Argentina.
Doesn’t the vehicle in general say they did things differently in Argentina?
Heck they even offered the “Pinto” 2.3 4cyl in the F100 in some South American countries. I’ve seen the brochure for it on line before but of course I can’t find it now.
It was quite common for US companies to ship the tooling overseas only after they were done with it in the US.
The 4-cyl 2.3 was fitted to the Brazilian-made F-100, and I already spotted a handful of those, but I’m not sure if they were available anywhere else. Limited exports to Uruguay might have happened, as a cheaper alternative to the Argentinian versions, but that’s it.
In Argentina the f-100 never has rectangular headlights. Ford used this front design up to 1982.
Those side and rear windows look like they were cut out in someone’s garage. It’s hard to believe that an otherwise good-looking truck could be ruined by an afterthought. Why not use the same rear doors as the North American Crew Cab and design the rest of the windows to match them? How hard could it be? I hope they at least kept the standard Ford powertrains.
I can’t help but wonder if this thing started out as a panel truck, and the rear side windows were added later in someone’s garage. The reason they did not use the crew cab’s rear doors may be because they don’t have the dogleg cutout. It is odd that they used a short wheelbase with such a long body. The door handles are also different that the North American versions. They look familiar, but I am not sure from where. Perhaps a heavy-duty truck.
I saw that too. It looks like they took the back half of an old Chevy Suburban’s roof and welded it on to the back of an F-150.
The fifties and sixties Suburbans had those distinctively shaped “Scenicruiser” bus style windows. The whole truck looks like it was made in someone’s garage, not offered as a series vehicle from a global manufacturer…
If one really wanted a big Ford SUV, there was the Centurian Conversion.
Argentina generally got current model F-Series designs, concurrent to NA.
Brazil on the other hand, got hand-me-down toolings for their trucks. Example, this ’69.
Did that truck come with a Y-block? I can’t read (it’s too fuzzy) the copy, but it sure looks one in the pic!
Yes, it was a Y-Block.
Argentinians had the design more up-to-date to their American counterparts, but they retained the Y-Block for a longer time after the Brazilian F-100 got briefly available with the Windsor 302 V8 which became highly unfavored due to the availability of a regionally-sourced Diesel engine.
1971
Then, in ’73 they were given the ’67-72 tooling.
Which saw out the 80s.
Actually this bodystyle was phased out only in ’92.
Very much a vehicle from a parallel universe. It looks so very familiar that you’d swear that it started out here as some kind of conversion. But then you see those slider windows, and odd angles. Very cool.
Reminds me of Mexican market vehicles which also bear similar familiar resemblance to cars that we had in the US. On a few of my trips to the Southwest, I have come across a few that migrated across the boarder. Nissan Tsurus come to mind (basically, a 1990’s Sentra).
You wouldn’t expect what else could come from South America. Look at this Brazilian F-1000 with an aftermarket crew-cab and front clip. Many of them are still roaming around, mostly with a locally-sourced 4-cyl Diesel.
Reminds me of how Volga kept adding more and more modern front and rear clips to the same 70’s vintage cabin/doors.
Unlike the Volga, this was an aftermarket approach. But some regular-production cars close in size to the Volga such as the Brazilian Chevrolet Opala and the Argentinian Ford Falcon followed basically the same strategy.
This is not a B-150. Such a model didn’t exist in Argentina (I think they existed in Mexico). It’s a ’77-’80 F-100, quite for sure. 292 V8 and 221 I6 gas engines and a 3,3l 4 cyl Perkins Diesel were available, As for the bodywork, looks quite handmade to me too. If you search for “Ford F100 rural” or “Ford F-100 carrozada” you find similar examples, but none like this one. Ford did build three-door short-wheelbase crew cabs in Argentina, perhaps one of those was modified into this so-called “rural” version.
Are you sure Ford built crew cabs? I thought they out-sourced them to body shops like Igarreta.
I think the main costumer for this type of vehicule were the public services companies such as Gas del Estado (natural gas), YPF (oil), ENTel (telephones) or SEGBA (electricity).
But I do think that the featured truck is home made since it’s very rough-shaped and has not good proportions.
Here we see a Igarreta-modified F100 powered by CNG property of the public gas company Gas del Estado.
Apart from some CKD units assembled in Venezuela, there were AFAIK no crew-cab versions of the F-Series made in any South American country prior to the introduction of the Super Duty lineup. And even the Super Duty had a very limited availability of the crew-cab in Argentina and Brazil, just from 2003 onwards even though it was already available for RHD export markets such as Australia and South Africa. This situation eventually favored similar 2-door crew-cab conversions to be performed into the Brazilian short-bed F-250.
Wow–what a serious oddity. It does look more like an aftermarket conversion than a factory-produced product, but I suppose stranger things have happened. The rounded top corners of the windows in the rear/cargo area doors are another curious feature, almost like someone had a pair of windows from an older vehicle that they repurposed.
Regardless, it’s fascinating. Would love to see one imported here!
Aftermarket bodyworks for the F-100, and for a Brazilian short-bed equivalent to the F-250 badged as F-1000, were very common. Particularly in Brazil, where it became nearly impossible for an ordinary citizen to get an imported vehicle between ’76 and ’90, truck-based conversions eventually turned out to cater to those who were looking for alternatives to luxury cars. And since the Econoline vans were not available locally, some coachbuilders did their own versions of it with fiberglass bodies over the Ford F-Series frames, like the Ibiza.
How could I have forgotten to mention a similar model based in the F-250 SD that I spotted in my hometown?
I have seen this in Phoenix Arizona. Is this an Argentinian B150? If not, what is it. It looks to be about a 1976 or 1977.
There’s no such thing as an Argentinian B-150. The B-100, B-150 and B-200 were all made in Mexico. So it might be either a Mexican B-100 or some American F-100 converted into some sort of wagon.
Hola, espero q se pueda traducir porque no se ingles!! Ford motor argentina nunca fabrico las f100 foble cabina o carrozadas , eran echas por carroceros independientes ( igarreta es el mas conocido hasta eran autorizadoS por ford y no perdian la garantia) la mayoria son todas f100. ( 6l 221 y. V8 292 nafta o perkins 4 cil gas oil)aunque hay algunas f250 o f350 ( v8 292 o perkins 6l gas oil) otro dato es que en argentina el desarrollo de la cabina fue bastante parecido al de eeuu hasta fines de los 80′ no asi los motores lamentablemente.
If I may provide translation:
Hello, I hope it can be translated because I don’t know English !! Ford Argentine motor never manufactured the f100 foble cabin or bodywork, they were made by independent bodybuilders (igarreta is the best known until they were authorized by ford and they did not lose the guarantee) most of them are all f100. (6l 221 and. V8 292 naphtha or perkins 4 cyl gas oil) although there are some f250 or f350 (v8 292 or perkins 6l gas oil) another piece of information is that in Argentina the development of the cabin was quite similar to that of the US until the end of The 80 ′ not so the engines unfortunately.
Thank you for the translation. This thread reminds me of an article here (I think) about Ford F250’s or F350’s being made into 4 door sedans in South America. My memory is really fuzzy about that. But I do recall they used a trunk lid and tail lights similar to a 1st gen Ford Focus, but supersized.
It’ s really “f100 doble cabin” (crew-cab). Typing error. And the local factories were allowed to import several parts for the vehicles, keeping them more up to date, at least in body work. Not so in Brazil where it was simply impossible to import.
Talk about cobbling!