Ford Once Made A Car-Based Pickup Truck With A Glorious 370 HP V8 Engine And A Manual Transmission: Holy Grails

In a not too-distant past, Americans had a wider variety of choices for the kind of vehicle they could use to haul stuff. One of these vehicles was the coupé  utility, a sleek pickup truck with the bones of a car. In the 1960s and 1970s, even the utes got the muscle car treatment and Ford had a rare one. At the beginning of the 1970s, you could get a Ford Ranchero with a beefy 429 cubic inch V8 making as high as 375 horsepower with ram air induction and bolted to a manual transmission, but good luck finding one.

The muscle car era of more than a half-century ago was one of the wildest periods in the American automotive industry. Automakers figured out the formula for great speed and unrivaled smiles per mile. All you had to do was take a chunky engine that would normally be fitted in an equally large car and just put it into something substantially smaller and lighter. Apply a graphics package and you get the kind of stuff of a young gearhead’s dreams.

It’s hard to pinpoint what was the first-ever muscle car. Oldsmobile was an early pioneer of the big engine in a little car formula with the Rocket V8-equipped Oldsmobile 88. The 88 was so fast that it dominated NASCAR in 1950, won Mexico’s Carrera Panamericana, and then there’s the hit rock track Rocket 88. As Hagerty notes, the Chrysler C-300 followed not long after as another smaller vehicle with an emphasis on power and performance.

Yet, Americans didn’t really get muscle car fever until the mid-1960s with entries like the Pontiac GTO and the Chevrolet Chevelle. The most famous muscle cars were intermediate two-doors with long hoods, “Coke bottle” styling, and eight cylinders of firepower driving the rear wheels. Some of the most famous muscle cars come from 1970, right at the peak of the gross horsepower era and before the oil crisis and the Malaise Era did their damage.

But the great thing about that old muscle car era is that the automakers didn’t just let the two-door coupés have all of the fun. America was so obsessed with power that we even got utes and trucks with intoxicating numbers of horses under the hood.

Before The El Camino

The idea of a car-based truck seems foreign today. The closest the modern day comes to the coupé utility is the crossover-based truck. The Honda Ridgeline, Ford Maverick, and Hyundai Santa Cruz are all built on unibody platforms shared with crossovers, but even they aren’t exactly like the utes of old.

Some of the earliest pickup trucks were just cars with trays in the back, like the option to get a tray in the back of a Ford Model T. As the automotive industry quickly developed, the pickup truck became a standalone vehicle. Still, that didn’t stop automakers from putting beds in the back of cars. The 1930s had a handful of American car-based trucks including the Chevrolet Coupe Delivery, the Hudson Terraplane Pickup Express, and the Studebaker Coupe Express (below).

Over in Australia, the ute was about to become a national sensation. As the story goes, farmers wanted a kind of truck that did hard work during the week but was also a good rig for going into town. Ford Australia answered the call when Ford Geelong engineer Lewis Bandt created a Model A-based coupé with a tray in the back. The coupé utility, or ute, eventually became a point of pride for Australia.

As Curbside Classic notes, the rise in popularity of the American ute took a different, yet familiar tack. The pickup trucks of the 1950s were gaining more carlike luxuries, but many still saw them as rough and tough work vehicles. While the trucks of today are generally seen as positive status symbols, trucks back then reflected a different kind of status.

The Ranchero was Ford coming up with a vehicle that could be used for work but was also something you could take to the shops or maybe a fancy restaurant. A retrospective I’ve written continues:

When Ford unveiled the Ranchero in December 1956, the F-Series was in its third generation. Ford marketed the Ranchero as being more than a car while also being more than a truck. The premise was that the Ranchero was a glamorous car and a hard-working truck all in the same package. Ford also noted that the Ranchero’s over half-ton payload was more than some of the trucks on the market at the time. In fact, the trucklet even bested the half-ton F-Series by about 50 pounds of payload. The Ranchero appeared to be the best of both worlds. It was low-slung, allowing both easier bed loading and better handling. Ford also boasted about the Ranchero’s car-like looks, which meant it could be welcome places a work truck couldn’t. Today, Ford calls the Ranchero its first compact pickup.

The first Ranchero was based on the 116-inch wheelbase Ranch Wagon and Courier Sedan Delivery. The trucklet featured a reinforced bed and at launch, the smallest engine available was a 223 cubic inch six-cylinder making 144 HP while the largest was a 292 cubic inch V8 making 212 HP.

Ford didn’t really hide the Ranchero’s mission. The company’s marketing copy for the Ranchero suggested the Ranchero was for the kind of person who cared about what their business vehicle looked like:

Because Ranchero, with its crisp modern lines, has a wonderful way of saying nice things about your company. Nice things like “progressive”…”up-to-date”…”good to deal with”. That’s why the Ranchero is excellent for any business – large or small – where customer impressions count.

So, while an Australian ute existed as a multi-purpose vehicle for farmers, the Ranchero was essentially tasked with being a pickup truck without the connotations of a pickup truck.

In 1960, the Ranchero was downsized and became based on the compact Falcon. Horsepower numbers got as high as 225 HP gross when you equipped your trucklet with a 289 Windsor V8. The third generation, which was sold for just a single year between 1966 and 1967, had the face of a Falcon, the chassis of a wagon, and up to 320 HP from a 390 cubic inch V8. For some, the one-year Ranchero is in itself a Holy Grail because of its mix of rarity, performance, and style.

High Style, Higher Power

Choosing just one vehicle to be the Holy Grail of Ford Rancheros is hard. The next three generations were short, but each had their own hot car.

The fourth-generation Ranchero entered production in 1968 and shares its bones with Torino, itself a part of the Fairlane line. The Fairlane line gives this generation of Ranchero its muscular looks and sporty interior. That year, Ford marketed the Ranchero as a bunch of different vehicles in one. The marketing copy is headlined with “Ranchero by Ford America’s Most Luxurious Pickup.”

That’s a grand statement, and it’s followed with “the performance minded ’68 Ranchero is far from an ordinary pickup…it’s the ultimate in pickup luxury shot full of sports car flair.” Yep, Ford wanted you to think that the Ranchero wasn’t just a muscle car, but a good pickup truck and a luxury car in one. Ford’s supporting evidence is the fact that you could order your 1968 Ranchero with a vinyl roof, a tachometer, an AM-FM radio, a center console, power front disc brakes, an electric clock, and fancy trim.

The truck part of the equation came from the Ranchero’s respectable 1,250-pound payload while the muscle came from a lineup of V8 engines. At launch, the best V8 was a 390 cubic inch mill with 325 HP on deck. Halfway through the year Ford made the Ranchero even hotter with the launch of the 428 Cobra Jet, which made 335 HP in standard form or up to 360 HP as the Super Cobra Jet.

Hopped Up Trucks

The Ranchero GT was also introduced in 1968 as the hot version of the coupé utility. The GT was considered to be the top model and it included the luxuries found in the Ranchero 500 model, but came standard with a 302 V8 and a racy appearance package.

I mention these fourth-generation models because here is where things start getting rare and desirable. There were 16,712 Rancheros sold in 1968. Of those, only 1,669 examples came in GT flavor. Even fewer came with the top engine, though I cannot find exact numbers. In 1969, there were 18,082 third-generation Rancheros sold. Of that number, only 1,658 GTs were made and of that number, only 80 came with the 428 Cobra Jet and a four-speed manual transmission.

So, finding an original 1969 Ford Ranchero GT with any flavor of the 428 Cobra Jet and a manual transmission would be a real treat. Sadly, I have not been able to find road tests of the Ranchero GT, but it must have been a riot.

The Ranchero underwent a comprehensive surgery in 1970 which saw it come out of the other end with a 114-inch wheelbase (an inch longer than before) and the era’s famous “Coke bottle” styling. This coincided with the Torino it was based on also getting upgraded for the year. The fifth-generation Ranchero also introduced an upscale Squire trim, which added some ’70s-tastic fake woodgrain trim to the vehicle’s sides.

Things got even better under the hood, where a 429 cubic inch Cobra Jet V8 churned out 360 HP and the Super Cobra Jet pumped out a healthy 370 HP by way of a “shaker” ram air hood scoop. The new styling was a hit with buyers and 21,640 Rancheros were sold that year. Of that number, just 3,905 were in the sporty GT trim and of that, just 153 were equipped with some form of 429 Cobra Jet V8. Even rarer than that are the 78 Rancheros with a Cobra Jet and a four-speed manual transmission.

Sales were somewhat similar in 1971 with 24,946 Rancheros being sold, of which just 3,632 examples were the sporty GT. I could not find those number broken down by engine.

If you check a brochure, you won’t find the hotter Super Cobra Jet advertised. As Hemmings writes, this is because you had to know how to option your car to get it, not that it was worth a ton of power:

Those well-versed in period road test magazines knew of the 429 Super Cobra Jet, obtainable by ordering the Drag Pack option. A change in hardware — to add even more power —included four-bolt main bearing caps in the two through four positions, an engine oil cooler, forged aluminum pistons, a Holley 4150-series 780-cfm carburetor, and a solid-lifter camshaft with a more aggressive profile; a functioning shaker scoop was added when the J-code Ram Air engine was specified. The published net boost was a laughable 5 hp.

Once again, I did not find a road test, but I did find Motor Trend‘s nomination of the Torino as its Car of the Year for 1970. The magazine cited the Torino’s wide variety of engines, models, style, and honesty of its models as reasons for its nomination. Motor Trend noted that each model in the Torino lineup was exactly as it said on the tin.

Finally, 1972 rolled around and the Ranchero evolved into an even larger car with a 118-inch wheelbase and surprisingly, a body-on-frame design. The last of the Ranchero grails appears to be the 1972 model, which still had the availability of a 429 (based on the 385 rather than the Cobra Jet), but now power was rated in net HP rather than gross, which meant 206 HP on deck. No manual transmission was offered, either.

It seems interest in Rancheros began tapering off after 1972. Sure, power ratings did increase to 220 HP in 1974, but you had to option your Ranchero with a colossal 460 cubic inch V8 to get it. You also had to deal with the Malaise Era looks, which are an acquired taste.

Rare To Find

However, these were still rare with just 860 Ranchero GTs coming equipped with 429 power. As for values, it’s hard to say since these cars are so rare. One 1972 Ranchero with a modified 429 is currently listed for $65,500 at Hemmings. Meanwhile, a 1968 Ranchero with a 428 Cobra Jet bid up to just $21,000 on Clasiq earlier this year. A 1970 Ford Ranchero GT 429 four-speed sold on Bring a Trailer for $34,000 in 2021. So, it seems like if you can find one, it won’t exactly kill you to buy it.

Sadly, while the Ranchero did fill a niche, it wasn’t exactly the hottest seller. Ford sold 508,355 units over 22 years. Officially, the Ranchero died in 1979 as a variation of the LTD II. Then the concept sort of got to live on again very shortly as the Ford Durango. The Ranchero came earlier than the Chevy El Camino, but the latter ute ended up becoming more popular and had the staying power to die later than the Ranchero.

Ultimately, all of America’s coupé utilities died as demand shifted toward compact trucks. However, for a little over two decades, if you wanted a truck that had the looks and power of a muscle car, the Ranchero was one of the options you had to light up the streets with smoky burnouts.