Handy Little Trucks: 1992 Ford Ranger vs 1995 Nissan Hardbody

Welcome to another Shitbox Showdown! Today we’re looking at a couple of basic, no-bullshit compact pickup trucks. You know, the kind no one makes anymore.

But first, we need to get the results from yesterday’s rear-engine love-fest. Lots of love for the Corvair in the comments, and it won handily. I get it; the second-gen Corvair coupe is one of the prettiest cars GM ever made, and the turbocharged Corsa with a four-speed is the most desirable version.

But man, that rust. Since moving to the West Coast, I’ve become a wimp about two things: the weather, and rusty cars. I tried to warn David before he moved to Los Angeles that the same thing was going to happen to him, and it sounds like I was right. It just happens. You find out that stuff you’ve been putting up with for years just isn’t necessary, and you lose your tolerance for it. So yeah, that Corvair is a hard pass for me. I’ll answer a thousand questions about a funny-looking little convertible instead.

And speaking of rust-free cars: I was in a hurry choosing vehicles today, so I just opened up Portland Craigslist and grabbed the first two small manual-transmission trucks that looked good. These are both still common sights on the road around here, nothing special at all, though I know they’ve all dissolved like wet newspaper in northern climates. So hey, if you want a rust-free small truck, come to the West Coast and prepare to road-trip one home. Here are two you can choose from.

1992 Ford Ranger – $2,799

Engine/drivetrain: 2.3 liter overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, RWD

Location: Beavercreek, OR

Odometer reading: 130,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

When Ford set out to replace its captive-import Courier pickup with something homegrown, it did the most sensible thing in the world: it stuck an F-150 in a copy machine, set it to “75%” and hit the green button. The result was twenty years of rock-solid little trucks, a surprising number of which are stil in service twenty years after the last one was built. GM did much the same with the S-series, with nearly as much success. Why reinvent the wheel? Just shrink it a bit.

The Ranger’s similarity to the bigger F-series trucks isn’t just cosmetic, either. It has a scaled-down version of the same Twin I-Beam front suspension, and Ford’s 2.3 liter overhead-cam four, which really is a smaller counterpart to the legendary 300 inline six. That little engine drives a solid rear axle on leaf springs through a five-speed stick. It’s all simple, durable, and cheap to maintain and repair, like a good truck should be.

This truck’s five-digit odometer reads 30,000 miles, and the seller assumes it has rolled over once, but looking at its condition, I’m not so sure. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a Ranger interior this clean. And the “Ford Racing Beige” paint outside looks great, too. It looks like someone swapped black-painted Explorer wheels onto it, in place of what were probably steelies with dog-dish hubcaps, which is kind of too bad; I like base-model rolling stock.

Hell, the bed barely even looks used. Someone needs to buy this truck and put it to work, stat.

1995 Nissan Hardbody – $3,250

Engine/drivetrain: 2.4 liter overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, RWD

Location: Vancouver, WA

Odometer reading: 148,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

And here we have one of the reasons Ford had to develop a small truck. Nissan (Datsun back then) was one of the first companies to offer a small truck in America, but it wasn’t until the mini-truck craze of the 1970s that sales really took off. Nissan’s 620 and 720 trucks were good, but the D21 “Hardbody” series introduced in 1986 was really something. It has great styling, muscular without being intimidating. It performs well and drives very nicely for a truck. And it’s as durable as all get-out.

This one is about as basic as they come, with a KA24E four-cylinder, a five-speed stick, and a bench seat that allegedly seats three across, but you’d better all know each other really well. The one option that the original purchaser of this truck seems to have sprung for is air conditioning, and it still works! The rest of the truck is in fine mechanical shape as well, and I know for a fact that with only 148,000 miles on the odometer, it’s just getting started.

It’s not in the greatest shape cosmetically. The front fenders and hood look like they were painted with rattle cans, making me suspect they’ve been replaced, possibly with junkyard parts. I’d like to know what happened there. It does have those sweet ’90s graphics on the sides, though.

It also has a topper, or camper, or cap, or whatever you want to call it. After all these years, having owned several trucks both with and without toppers, I’m still not sure whether I like them or not. They mess up the looks of most trucks, and make it harder to load and unload certain things, but then on rainy days when you have to make a grocery store run and cram all the groceries in the cab with you, you start envying all that dry storage. I guess the best solution would be to have a topper, and a place to store it, and some easy way of getting it on and off. Perhaps something involving pulleys…?

So there they are, a couple of basic motorized wheelbarrows, ready to take on whatever chores you need them for, even if it’s commuting. These are both probably more expensive than they would have been a couple years ago, but that’s the current market for you. They both still feel like decent deals to me. But no, I’m not going to include a “both” option. You can only have one.

(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)