Here’s a compelling argument for body-on-frame construction, eh! Somebody cut together a 4-wheel-drive ’87-’91 Ford pickup and a school short bus, as it seems.
Whoever it was, they really meant business; viz the heavy-duty mechanical jack –lashed– bolted to the front bumper. But they built up a big, tough bruiser like this and equipped it with these mini little horns? Disappoint, but I guess horns aren’t all that important when whatever this might hit will become a crumple zone.
(These headlamps—a Ford Better Idea™—aged poorly and sucked even when they were new; real, working ones were export-only items)
The co-adaptation of the bus and truck bodies reminds me of a careful, craftsmanlike job of plenum-and-ductwork coming off a furnace or air handler.
Chrome housings in place of what used to be the bus’ front warning lamps…what’re we hoping to see with spotlights pointed straight ahead? With silly dichroic-coated lenses for yellowish light in the beam and blue stray haze everywhere else? »tsk« I mean!
I like the red wheels with the blue bus. Looks like multiple fuel tanks; diesel, at a guess. What’s that port (or…?) there between the two fuel fillers?
There’s something of a red-ivory-and-blue theme going here, with that red cowl plate. The doorstep looks useful, particularly if one is trying to schlurpf oneself up out the mud and into the cab.
Smashed/missing right front and rear clearance light lenses, h’m. Or maybe those dual tanks don’t hold diesel; the tailpipe appears maybe more gasoline-sized. Looks as though the trailing lower edge of the body has been upcut for a steeper departure angle nullified by the rear bumper.
Hell of a stout bumper it is, too!
I’m seeing curtains; a bed; a sink, a table…no stove, though. Or maybe that whatzit between the two fuel fillers over on the left side is stove-related?
Stick-shift because of course it is. The cab is configured and in condition pretty much just like I imagined it when I came round a corner and saw it on my walk from the detailing shop, where I’d dropped my Accord to get it spiffed up for sale.
After I emerged from breakfast across the street, this truckbus hadn’t moved. Right, then; more photos!
Yeah, the rear bumper cancels the departure-angle body cut from this angle and I wouldn’t want to run into it from this view, too and either.
Donno if these rear door hinges are original to the bus body, but they’re the only items painted that colour.
This 80-watt sealed beam is what was behind pretty much all school bus warning light lenses for many decades, back before LEDs. Again, what’re we planning on seeing with spotlights way up here, aimed straight back? Aw, well; it looks tough and the shapes and curves and lines are interesting. And we see a bit of school bus yellow paint from this bus’ previous life.
So far, I was still imagining this conveyance being used for research fieldwork in hard-to-access places. Maybe so, but then I went back round the front to grab a pic of the VIN plate so I could pinpoint the truck’s model year, and found this:
Black Rock City. Ah. This thing’s been to Burning Man at least once, then. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t used for fieldwork, but.
As to the VIN, well…LOLnope, it wasn’t telling.
And it even had the nerve to pull a face at me!
What an interesting beast. Someone did quite a good job integrating all the bits and pieces. The colour scheme with the red wheels works better than I would have imagined it. Excellent find.
This is a new one for me. I like it; it’s a creative low-cost solution to get off-road capability.
Sort of like one of the west coast logging industry Crummys. They were usually built on a regular cab though with the pickup box deleted.
Many years since I have heard the word Crummys. Thanks for the memory.
The guy I worked with used to call them C-c-c-crummys, just to emphasize how crummy they were.
Where I worked, crummies were panel vans or suburban type vehicles with barn doors in the back which sucked dust in all over the place. The Chevies were worst.
Interesting cut lines behind the front doors. Looks like it’s converted from a “SuperCrew,” not from a “SuperCab”
The rear wheel opening of the school bus body must be aligned with the rear axle of the chassis. The body is then joined with the cab. Perhaps the distance to the front door is a bit too long for a SuperCab, hence a SuperCrew is used.
Looks to me like it was done by a school bus body company, too clean and ‘engineered’ to be your average home built job. Likely the result of some government/municipal fleet ‘have to have it’ procurement bid, built to some ridiculous specification and this particular vehicle was the result. Seen the process create a useless and expensive vehicle many times, but this one looks to have some redeeming qualities.
…with school bus yellow paint showing through on a bus body almost certainly older than the truck? No, I think not.
As Corners mentioned above, I would bet money it started out as a Crummy on the west coast. Used to haul the loggers out to the bush for the day or to and from camps. MacMillan Bloedel had many similar vehicles, and they can be found all over Vancouver Island and the Coast. Definitely a lot of them were put on a regular cab chassis or cutaway van chassis like a motorhome. Great job of repurposing if that’s indeed what it was.
I have never seen a crummy built on a Supercab so perhaps someone pulled the passenger box off another chassis and stuck it on this one. Looks like it involved stretching the frame as well. I recall watching the loggers go to work in the morning each summer when we camped on Vancouver Island, these headed out first, followed by the giant Pacific and Hayes off-road only logging trucks..
Great find Daniel!
That was my first thought as well, the red makes it look like an old MacBlo rig. They’ve been gone for years but here on Vancouver Island you still see the odd remnant. I don’t recall ever seeing an extended cab though. You really had to hang on to your (half full) coffee at 0430 if you were riding in one of these!
I had several Fords of this vintage And Daniel Stern is exactly right, the headlights were terrible even when the trucks were new.
In Argentina and Brazil, these trucks got rather nice name-brand (Cibié) headlamps made of metal and glass like it says in the bible, with an H4 bulb.
Someone should have sold them here. Agree the OEM headlamps on ’87 to ’91 F series trucks were among the worst, along with ’98-’03 Ram Vans.
Someone did, while they were still in production!
“Among the worst”…H’mm. So hard to pick; there have been so many contenders!
…and in Australia, they got what we in North America would recognise as standard large rectangular sealed beams (or whatever other same-size lamps one might want to install)
This seems like it would be the best choice, as you have your pick of a wide range of lamps that are currently in production. I guess I have a fear of getting a rock kicked into a (probably?) hard to find, long out of production bespoke headlamp like the Cibié you pictured above. I suppose the setup used in ‘Straya is probably rare as rocking horse poop, too. Though once you have it, you have it. The only way to kill that hardware would be in a collision.
I’m also digging the display of those dead headlamps up on the hood. In Arizona, the UV damage on 1987-91 Ford truck headlamps leaves them an opaque yellow that’s more than a few shades darker than that above.
Perhaps the best part of this piece is hearing that Jenna’s Orange Doid is being prepared for sale… Here’s to hoping you’ve hooked a much more enjoyable automotive travel companion!
Nope, it’s available in kit form, and the price looks nicer once converted from Australian dollars. The completely-not-available-that-I’ve-ever-found headlamp setup is the one for the subsequent ’92-’96 trucks, as shown in the attached pic. Clearly these are factory parts—where, I don’t know; I don’t recognise the licence plate—but I never found part numbers or availability, new or used. Y’ask me, the truck looks better this way. The driver sure as all hell sees better! If you decide to click this pic, be careful your eyes aren’t injured by seeing the impractical, not-cost-effective, unproven [these are all claims/excuses Ford have made] amber rear turn signals and side turn signal repeaters.
(Jenna’s Orange Doid was a story; that car’s only name around here was after a certain body part often likened to opinions in that everybody’s got one. There’ll be details eventually.)
Ahh ha. I think I’ve registered the correct pet name for that Accord.
And I agree that the 1992-96 trucks wear the 142x200mm headlamps like they were actually designed to use them. I know that’s pure happenstance, but once in awhile, things just fall together… but then you can’t get the hard bits to facilitate the swap. Arrgh. I have actually seen one 1992-96 F150 with the export tail lamps. It was wearing Mexico plates, though I’m pretty sure the Mexican market trucks used the same red dreck as the US/Canadian models. I’m guessing that truck worked its way up into Mexico from South or Central America, or perhaps it belonged to someone who “saw the light”.
I’m still amazed at how hard-headed the US automakers are when it comes to amber rear turn signals, though I prolly shouldn’t be… They’ve been balking and kicking and screaming and making excuses for 50 years. In that time, they have added many features that were mandated, and many were quite a bit more expensive than a couple of bulbs, a few feet of wire, and a bit of extra amber plastic. They have no problem using amber turn signals as a styling element… say as a mid-cycle refresh. but “Hell damn no! We can’t put ’em on EVERYTHING!”
Mexican Ford trucks used a mix of US and South American taillights, depending on year, model, and trim.
Put on safety glasses before you read the rest of this, so your eyes won’t roll away: GM’s latest lame argument against amber turn signals is “We’re voluntarily putting automatic emergency braking on most of our vehicles, so better turn signals aren’t needed”. Um…wrong. In the first place, sorry, what was that adjective you just uttered? The one right before ‘turn signals aren’t needed’, what’s that word there? In the second place, the average age of a car on US roads is over 12 years, so it’s going to be many long years before AEB will be common. Better (to use their words) turn signals prevent crashes with all vehicles, new and old.
Hoo boy! That one’s a stinker. Hard not to come away with the feeling that now they’re just being silly for the sake of being silly while thumbing their nose at NHTSA. Slightly amused at how GM introduced these novel amber turn signals like they were the latest and greatest technology in 2001. I’m sure GM breathlessly explained how new and great and European these space age turn signals were back when they were installing them on cars for that hot minute in the late 1970’s, too. Jerks!
@Jim Klein – I think you’re right!
That’s almost certainly a 1990s Norwegian license plate on the blue F-series. The little oblong colored things between the letters are registration stickers.
We made a trip up to The Queen Charlotte Islands now Haida Gwaii way back in the late 90’s. We drove into a Mac Blo logging sort and maintenance operation out in the middle of nowhere on Graham Island. As it was a Sunday nobody around but the off road Hayes and Pacific logging trucks were all lined up with their 11 foot bunks loaded with impossibly high loads of logs. I grew up here in North Vancouver just up the hill from the Pacific Truck and Trailer plant. Remember those huge trucks being tested on the quiet streets behind Capilano Mall.
I worked with several guys that had worked at Hayes Trucks before it was shut down.
Looks to me like a Proto-EarthRoamer. Now we know where the EarthRoamer people got the idea.
And, dang, that jack means business. I wonder what the owner uses it for.
My guess between the fuel fillers is for an electrical hook-up when available.
Dave
That’s a FrankenFord. Pretty scary looking.
Since the cab has a full width bench seat, is the only access to the bus compartment through the rear (emergency) door? Big step up to that bumoer.
This bustruck makes perfect sense after I saw the Burning Man sticker. Everything except for that jack riding on the front bumper. After a couple winters worth of road salt that jack is going to be rusted in place and likely inoperable. Why not stow it out of the elements behind the bench in the cab? One of these years I’m going to get my butt to Burning Man.
Cool old truck. Would fit right in out on the Slabs as well. The lights up top are good to see fore and aft in dark remote places. From my heat & air duct construction days, that plenum-and-ductwork above the cab is called a transition.
I find it kind of appealing now, when I was 20 plus years younger it would have inspired lust.
I like this ! .
Looks very well done many years after .
Those jacks were used on ranches back in the day to pull fences tight when doing repairs .
Now they’re mostly just a cool visual accessory but as long as it works it’ll get you out of tight spots .
Maybe one of those two fillers is for water ? .
-Nate