posted at the Cohort by Matt Z
This Ranchero typifies why Ford almost went bankrupt in 1980: Henry Ford II was convinced that big cars were the only ones that Ford could make a profit on in the US, and so they just kept getting bigger, and uglier. No wonder I have a perverse or morbid attraction to these last of the Rancheros. There’s just something so…deadly about them. Never mind their decidedly un-utilitarian vibe, with that ridiculously long front end. But that all makes this grizzled survivor all the more appealing. It’s cheated death, and that’s intrinsically appealing.
I’m not sure of the exact model year of this example, but this generation arrived in 1977 and 1979 was its swan song year, so I’ll pick the midpoint. Speaking of midpoint, the cab on these is almost exactly in the middle, which intrinsically makes it rather unique. Center-cab, not exactly a common stylistic genre.
It reminds me of this.
And this.
Not surprisingly, this generation was the end of the road for the genre; too bad, as a Fox body version like the aftermarket Durango. Not only would it have overcome those objections and quite possibly have sold reasonably well.
I find this a bit painful to look at, so let’s move along. And never mind what was lost under its endless hood.
This one sports a Wisconsin license plate, so it must have been kept off the road in the winters to have survived this well. Good call, as these were notoriously bad in the snow, due to their relatively lightly-loaded rear ends.
I can only take so much morbid attraction, so it’s time to move on…
I would fit the Thunderbird front on that Ranchero if I could find an intact donor. Anything from a 302 to a 400 could be under that hood. One of these in nice condition sold at Barrett-Jackson for $4,400, so there is wiggle room for us car guys who can’t afford a $5,000 husk of a Camaro or Mustang that needs $10,000 and years of wrenching to be running and driveable.
That might work, but really we need to trim about a foot off the front.
Now that I’ve seen the center cab, I can’t unsee it. Someone did have one with a t bird nose in Albany NY during the early nineties. It was done up as a street rod. Looked nice as I recall.
Fords from this era only underscore the miracle that was the first Taurus.
I actually have a running 77 Rancher with the 351M and a 77 Thunderbird with the 400 for sale here in Illinois. I was planning on making the swap but I have had issues come up and need to sell them.
Hi Doug I have been looking for Ranchero. I actually want to do the Cougar swap. I am from central Indiana.
If you still have the truck you can contact me at [email protected].
This has not defied death – it is the Angel itself. An extended look into the multiple eyes is intended to bring on conniptions, and if the profile is sighted, the End begins.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in 1978..
….this, maybe even 351 and 4 speed.
Hats off to owner for keeping it going—I guess it’s got as much load capacity as a station wagon, with the topper keeping things dry. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Ford Guy, but always found it hard to like the styling–Paul’s “center-cab” observation really drives the awkwardness home.
And then that Fox-body “Durango” came along–ahh, love the looks of those, and would happily own one.
BTW, if this is a Wisconsin vehicle, I can’t see why front license plate isn’t displayed, though I don’t know if anyone out-of-state could cite you for that.
The WI truck plate is different. I had one 1990-1998 when I gave away my rusted out ’82 Toyota SR-5 longbed. I didn’t have a front plate on it during the entire time, and I was out of state (CA, MA, NY–all had front plates) all those years and maintained my WI registration by mail (no inspections or emissions were required back then). The truck plate I had was black on beige in this format. I never was cited for not having a front plate in those states. The other two states I lived in during the 14 year life was PA and GA and neither required a front plate. I did get harassed by a local Albany NY cop about ‘expired’ plates shortly after I moved there in July 1996, but back off when I produced on site a current registration and the tag that I hadn’t put on my plate yet.
@George Ferencz
Also, where are the registration stickers on the rear plate?
As far as I know, Wisconsin had a front plate requirement even for the brown with blue writing truck plates in the 90s. This plate series may have originated in 1988 (?); as you can see in NavyBrat’s pic, they all were stamped 88 right where you would put the year sticker.
We had a ’91 Ranger and it had both front an rear brown plates. I do occasionally see vehicles without front plates in Wi, so I’m not sure how strictly enforced the law is.
I still see one pickup around here using his personalized brown plate on his truck and I also see some personalized white with red letter plates on cars occasionally which were retired in 2000.
It is very strange that it doesn’t have both the weight sticker (A, B or C) and then two other stickers indicating the month and year of expiration. Something may be fishy with the registration on it.
I wanted to take some interior shots (it was dirty and in rough shape), but I didn’t want to get confronted by it’s owner as I could only imagine who would be driving this.
Thanks to everyone for the Collective Wisdom about the front plate—very informative. Here in WI, at least 5% of cars (disproportionately German marque & expensive) don’t bother to display them, and I’ve had police admit to me that they don’t really enforce that, and could be writing citations regularly.
I would guess this is the front plate off of another truck. WI only has stickers on the rear plate. It is probably not registered.
It amazes me that there are still a few of these on the road up here and a few Rancheros on Kijiji on sale for parts or restoration.
The canopy cover makes the car look even more awkward.
–This Ranchero typifies why Ford almost went bankrupt in 1980–
Absolutely true.
This vehicle is a rolling version of this:
The Ranchero is the Mullet of 1980.
It is like Kenny G.
You could get a saxophone, or a clarinet – why would you want an electrified saxinet? Or that thing Gary Wright played on stage –
Keytar, FTW!
Dream Weaver!
Oh wow, i believe that’s the one i’ve seen around here on my way to work. Totally recognize where those photos were taken (Delafield – western suburb of Milwaukee)
Small world!
Greg G: HOLY CC EFFECT! This being Paul’s post, I assumed it was an Oregon locale, and it sure didn’t seem familiar or Midwestern. I live not far away from where the Ranchero was parked and, this a.m. (after commenting above), I bicycled within a couple miles of the spot. WOW!!!!!!!
All I see is that 1970s silver paint that seemed to be on half of everything Ford built after 1975. At 3 years old the shine was mostly gone and at 5 or 6 all of it was, with some of the paint letting go from the primer coat as well. Ugh. And people wonder why I don’t like silver cars.
My ’76 Cougar had that faded silver paint in 1982. The closest match is Canadian Voodoo Grey (FS 36515 which was only used on the actual flying CF-101B Voodoo). A shame that it sent from shiny silver with a sheen that reflected sunlight on the dealer lot to a colour suitable for aircraft camouflage in 6 years. We wouldn’t tolerate that today. No wonder there was a MAACO in every city!
I have no doubt that if my Cougar hasn’t been turned into a Chinese refrigerator that it would look just like that Ranchero. The last I heard of it, the cousin we sold it to experienced a busted transmission in the mid-80s, no doubt due to my 17 yr old hoonage and frequent neutral to drive drops to get a tire to spin. No, I never confessed to doing that! But I did have to replace bent pushrods twice…
A Fairmont Ranchero probably would have been dead meat in the market after 1979. Specialty vehicles crashed in 1980 and stayed down. Despite the lack of competition in 1980, El Camino/Caballero sales were down for 1980, and down more in 81, and more in 82. Unlike other specialty vehicles, sales never came back up.
I owned one of these back in the eighties. Mine was a ’78 model, in a bronze color with the gold stripe package and wire wheel covers. It had the 351 and performed very well for me for a few years. I used it pretty hard, like a truck, even towed a small tractor on a trailer one day. It looks front heavy because it is. I never drove it in snow, but rain was bad enough. I delivered newspapers for a while, and there were a couple of steep roads/driveways into apartment complexes that it just did not have enough traction when they were wet so I had to walk a while.
I always thought this front end worked better on the sedans. The Ranchero and wagons rear was not restyled for the whole run from ’72 to ’79, and it showed.
The quarters did change, 1972-1976 Torino Wagon and Ranchero had the flare in the body that flowed down into the door just like the sedans. The Montego Wagon did not have that flare but instead had a wheel flare. For 77 the LTD II replaced the Torino. With that change the Ford Wagon adopted the 72-76 Mercury shell and the Ranchero followed suit the better to match the LTD II front end.
I’m betting that Ford changed the Wagon/Ranchero because the “hips” of the 72 body were out of style, but it certainly could have be related to the fact that the Mercury dies were in better condition having seen less use.
Ford created so many brilliant iconic designs for so many years, including the original Ranchero – starting with the ’49 Ford and successors including the 1957 Ford station wagon that that Ranchero was based on. 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II. 1956 Lincoln. 1958 Thunderbird. 1960 Falcon. 1961 Lincoln and Thunderbird. 1964 Mustang.
Then things went downhill until it reached the nadir of this car. Ugh. It should have been put out of its misery decades ago.
Later, the original Taurus. Clearly in those dark days in between there were some morons in management or in charge of styling or probably both.
What a grizzled survivor of a car and I too, am surprised it has not rusted into nothing. Thanks for sharing these photos they were quite nice to look at.
That center cab thing is now hard to ignore. The front overhang on FordMoCo’s midsize vehicles was really ridiculous, yet the overhang somehow worked on the Mark V.
The Australian Falcon and Ute of the late seventies do look muscular & handsome next to the mullet wearing & trashy last Rancheros.
1970s version of a 1940s business coupe.
If you look carefully, you can see the middle is lower to the ground than the ends, due to the curvature of the earth.
It says GT on the sides. Must have a handling suspension and an LSD.
Or rather designed while handling suspension of reality on LSD.
Ironically the owner is a flat earther!
In Scoutdude’s Lottery Dream Garage/Ark there would be a place for one of the 77-79 Rancheros. In my version of the Ark there are two of everything but with the twist that one is stock and the other modified. The stock Ranchero would be a 1972 GT, While the modified would be 77-79 with the T-bird clip, GT stripe, slightly lowered, the widest tires I could tuck under it and a healthy 351W/C6.
This rusting, hulking mass of potential energy looks like a super-beater that Mad Max & the Feral Kid would have used to tear up the Outback.
Or maybe it’s a reject of the Royal Bulgarian Armed Forces.
But, as many said above — she’s a survivor & still on the road.
It is kinda like a Ute, isn’t it?
I kind of have a soft spot for this. It’s an absurd vehicle, half ugly car, half low payload truck, that weighs and takes up as much space as a full size truck, but it has the sharp looking late 70s paint on performance GT decals and is the anthesis to everything of practical nature and a rolling representation of what cars were available before consumers “got smart” and started caring about such things like resale, yearly fuel cost, environmental impact, peer perception, safety, and other dull soul sucking adulting things like that. My brain says the best Rancheros were the small 60-65s, but my heart would stop me in my tracks if I passed by this big ol thing if it had a for sale sign on my commute.
This car made more sense in the 70’s than it does now. My cousin had one but in black. It rode Iike a dream and it could bring the bacon home, or a side of beef or….? My cousin died in his sleep 2 years ago (lucky Bugger). I miss him something awful but seeing this post brings back memories of us riding in his old Ranchero years ago. Thanks for posting this. Happy trails cousin John.
Wow! That’s the same paint scheme that my wife’s uncle’s Ranchero had that I posted in the other Ranchero thread.
I never have liked the overhang on these late ones. My ’73 didn’t have that much of one even with the battering ram bumper. I don’t have any proof of that but I did look a a couple of pictures of it before I wrote this.
Mine wasn’t too bad in the snow for how it was set up as long as I put some weight in the bed. The L-70 rear tires with a jacked up rear end didn’t help, though. What the hell, looking cool is much more important than being practical. Right?
lefthandutes.com
I think these are way cool!
Bruce
The proportions of this generation Ranchero are just plain wrong. The old Falcon Rancheros were nicely sized trucklets but these lost the plot. Also as the F100 became more car like and small trucks like the Courier and Ranger appears there was less and less reason for these to exist.