1971 Ford Ranchero Squire – Use It Or Lose It

Authenticity is the key; if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. In this case, faking was not even needed. Ever since I discovered those informal Sunday classic car meets at the Meiji Shrine park, I’ve had an embarrassment of CC riches to share with you all. For the most part, they are extremely well-preserved or restored rarities, especially Italian and British stuff. But Tokyo is so huge that one can sometimes also come across the odd honest workhorse of a Ford pickup, still working for a living, unwashed and unrestored, and all the better for it.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s a 1970-71 Ranchero – the long-running nameplate’s sleekest iteration and arguably the last one that had genuine steak to go with the sizzle. And this is the Squire version, so there was plenty of sizzle on offer.

So let’s steer (moooo!) the conversation towards the location of the beef, then. As an American interpretation of the Ozzie ute, Rancheros are more car than truck, by any standard. They were based on Ford wagons, at least initially.

When Ford launched the concept in the late ‘50s (top left), it was based on the Courier sedan delivery, i.e. the Custom / Fairlane two-door wagon, on a 116-118’’ wheelbase. Then came the Falcon-based Rancheros (1960-65, top right) – a much smaller vehicle just under the 110’’ mark, followed by the slightly bigger 1966-67 (bottom right) and 1968-69 (bottom left) generations. By the end of this first decade, Ford no longer had two-door wagons to base the Ranchero off of, but the niche had been created and Chevy’s El Camino had to be countered…

For 1970, the Torino had taken over as the main intermediate nameplate and ushered in a fresh body design. The Ranchero was now sporting a 114’’ wheelbase — same as the Torino/Fairlane wagon. The bed, like for the previous generation, was 6’6’’ in length – just enough for hauling a pair of dirt bikes…

As far as the Japanese taxman is concerned though, this is a full-size truck, hence the “100” license plate. Not that this particular pickup has been here since birth.

We have a Worden-Martin Production here, folks! This Illinois dealer is still in operation, too. Interesting spelling of the word “Champagne”…

Ford committed enough blunders and stinkers in the postwar era to give them full credit where it’s due. The 1970 Torino/Fairlane/Ranchero (and the so-called “1970 1/2 Falcon“) all share the same styling, and it’s pretty damn good. The car’s dynamics were bog-standard Detroit fare, but the body was a lot sleeker than any intermediate.

Plymouth (bottom left) and AMC (top right) still looked like 1966 models and the Chevelle (top left) simply didn’t have the Torino’s swoopy Coke bottle profile and its aggressive and sculptural nose. Said nose, in this instance, sports the optional hidden headlights, which do add yet more exclusivity to the Ford design.

The hidden headlights were also available on the nearly-identical 1971 models, including the Ranchero. This one doesn’t have them – probably a wise choice, it’s just another potential failure point.

Mind you, it doesn’t look as if the original buyer up in Champaign, IL, ticked that many boxes on the options list. They probably figured that forking out all that dough for a Squire would have been quite enough.

Introduced in 1970, the Ranchero Squire was naturally based on the Torino Squire, adding a dollop of ‘70s-style woodgrain-sided Broughamesque luxury to the vehicle. One could add a console with a floor-mounted shifter or a three-spoke sports wheel to the mix, but that was all secondary to what was under the hood.

There were four trim levels to choose from, and all but the GT got the wheezy 6-cyl. as standard. Our feature car probably has a V8 (the 302 or the calmer 351), as going to the trouble of ordering the Squire without one sounds a little odd. What it doesn’t have is the top-of-the-line 370hp Cobra 429 or the hotter (285hp) 351 engine, as those were famously paired with the “shaker” air scoop sticking out of the hood.

Of all 1971 Rancheros, the Squire is the rarest. Ford made a grand total of about 25k Rancheros of all variants, of which only 2595 units donned the Di-Noc decor.

To many people’s thinking, that would incite whoever happens to own one of these scarce machines to treat it with kid gloves. Well, there is a pair on top of the dash here, so maybe this particular simile is not quite what I’m looking for. Then again, putting the kph on the speedo in Tipp-Ex is symptomatic of how this particular Ranchero Squire is going through its sixth decade on the road: no longer having to contend with the road salt of Illinois, but hardly a Japanese garage queen.

No, this is a pickup that’s being used as a pickup, something that probably did not happen all that often to Rancheros in general, and to higher-trimmed ones in particular. Even back in the day, these were regarded as two-seater muscle cars with a large open-air trunk, not trucks.

But they can be trucks. We now have photographic proof. And they can look absolutely awesome doing it, too.

 

Related posts:

QOTD/Curbside Outtake: 1971 Ford Ranchero 500 – Every Ranchero Has A Story; What’s This One’s?, by Roger Carr

Curbside Classic: 1973 Ford Ranchero Squire – The Pickup Car Goes Luxury, by Eric703