At the beginning of this year, I wrote a Holy Grails entry about how more than two decades ago you could buy a purple Ford F-Series with a manual transmission and one of the greatest diesel truck engines of all time. I stand by what I said in that piece, but I think I just found a truck that’s infinitely cooler. Up for sale right this moment is a 1996 Ford F-350 Centaurus III, a truck where you get everything. This rare beast has four doors, an eight-foot bed, a legendary 7.3-liter Power Stroke diesel V8, and oh yeah, it’s a time capsule with just 1,668 original miles. Be sure you’re sitting down when I bring up the price.
One of the most fascinating things about the modern pickup truck is that you can get work, style, and luxury all in the same package. The 2024 Ford F-250 Lariat I drove earlier this summer wasn’t even the king of the hill, yet it was so comfortable and so well-equipped that it made driving across the country oh so painless. I could only imagine sinking myself into the hides of a King Ranch.
Rewind the clock nearly 30 years and you’ll find that big pickups were still largely work vehicles. Ford advertised such luxuries like captain’s chairs, convertible center consoles, and power controls, but nothing like what you get today. For more luxury, you’d want something like this 1996 Ford F-350 Centaurus III, which combined the power of a big truck with the luxury of a ’90s conversion van with some sporting style.
A What?
Despite appearances, I didn’t misspell Centurion. While Centurion conversions have a similar look to this truck, a Centaurus is not a Centurion.
This story starts with Scott T. Chapman, an entrepreneur with a love for converting vans. According to Automotive News, his prior work involved starting Bivouac Industries and converting vans for nearly a decade. Bivouac Industries crashed and burned in 1987 when conversion van demand fell off a cliff. Chapman never gave up, opening LCM Inc. in Elkhart, Indiana in 1990 to convert vans into commercial vehicles.
The other side of this venture included Timm Bledsoe of Centaurus Vans. This company opened in 1988 with Bledsoe converting vans into luxury vehicles, or what Chapman used to do. In 1992, Chapman’s LCM picked up Centaurus Vans, putting the conversion van producer under the roof of LCM. Apparently, Chapman was so into what Centaurus was doing that he pumped the brakes on LCM’s commercial vehicle production.
As Automotive News reported, in 1995, LCM-Centaurus tried to stand out in the dense pack of conversion van builders by unveiling lightweight, aerodynamic van interiors designed by Boeing. Its other tricks included paint buffed to a glass finish, two-part polymer coatings to walnut trim, and circular knit fabrics.
Sadly, whatever LCM was doing didn’t really work because the company folded up in 1998, taking Centaurus down with it. Bledsoe would go on to work for a bunch of RV manufacturers and a shuttle bus company, never really leaving the specialty vehicle space. I have not been able to track down Chapman.
LCM’s fall from grace is sort of surprising. According to Automotive News, the company made $60 million in sales in 1994 and had 180 employees plus 450 dealers in 1995. The company had deals with each of the Big Three and sold 5,600 vans in 1994, up from 2,800 units in 1994.
The Centaurus III
LCM converted a number of vehicles in its short lifespan. Some are pretty obvious like the Ford Econoline and the Dodge Ram van, but then the list includes conversions of the Chevy Astro and the Ford Explorer, too. The coolest is easily the Centaurus III, or a pickup truck turned into a conversion van.
Sadly, I have not been able to find any brochures or documentation for these trucks, but I can tell you that the Centaurus trucks were built like the Centaurus vans. This truck started life as a Ford F-350 Crew Cab with a long bed, then LCM-Centaurus went to work to “pimp” it out.
Let’s start with the exterior. LCM-Centaurus took a plain F-350 XLT and decked it out with a brush guard, auxiliary lights, a wind deflector, a wind visor, and a ground effects kit. As I noted earlier, LCM-Centaurus heavily marketed its graphics and paint packages which featured hand-sanded and buffed paint. This truck also sports a roof antenna and an air horn. All of it is said to be FMVSS-compliant.
The real magic happens inside, where Ford’s boring interior was upgraded to luxury spec. The first thing you’ll notice are cushy real leather thrones and a rear bench that folds into a bed. All of that trim you see is real walnut that LCM-Centaurus marketed as being “ultra-gloss.” Centaurus added ambient lighting all over the truck’s cabin, added its own headliner, added its own plush carpeting, and even added insulation to the cab.
Centaurus conversions were also known for the addition of televisions, radios, and ice chests. I see a CB radio in the cab of this one plus overhead switches, headphone jacks, and reading lights. The rear seat passengers get their own screen and there’s also a vintage car phone sitting on the passenger floor. It’s unclear what other features this truck has, but Centaurus also advertised heated and vibrating seats in its other conversions.
All of this is wrapped up in an already legendary truck. This 1996 Ford F-350 is already a mint condition example of a ninth-generation “Old Body Style” (OBS) truck, but it’s also equipped with a legendary 7.3-liter Power Stroke V8 turbodiesel. From my retrospective:
The iconic 7.3-liter Ford Power Stroke engine is also known as the Navistar T44E, and it brought some important upgrades to the table. The biggest improvements were direct injection and computer control. At the time, General Motors saddled its trucks with the 6.5-liter Detroit Diesel while Dodge trucks with the Cummins 5.9. Navistar was ready to deal a blow to both companies.
[…]
HEUI joins forces with six head bolts per cylinder, a Garrett turbocharger, forged connecting rods, and a fluid-to-fluid oil cooler to provide high performance and a lifespan that could outlive you. Later examples of the 7.3 got a wastegate for the turbo and an air-to-air intercooler. There was also a brief moment between 2001 and 2003 when powdered metal con-rods were used.
If you’re going with an OBS unit, the Power Stroke was advertised at 210 HP and 425 lb-ft of torque at launch. After 1996, the rating was pumped up to 225 HP and 450 lb-ft of torque. Power Stroke-equipped 1999 Super Duty trucks got 235 HP and a beefy 500 lb-ft of torque. By 2003, this was bumped up to 250 HP (275 HP manual transmission) and 525 lb-ft of torque.
Click here if you want to read more about what HEUI is, but the short version is that the 7.3-liter Power Stroke is a stone axe of an engine. Sure, it doesn’t make a ton of power compared to today’s beasts, but it’s relatively easy to keep alive and will run even when the truck around it has dissolved into nothingness. Diesel fans concerned more with reliability than power covet these engines – as well as the Cummins competition – enough to spend stupid amounts of money on them. To further illustrate how cool these engines are, you technically can’t even run them out of oil because the engine only needs sufficient oil just to run.
According to Ford, this engine is making 210 HP and 425 lb-ft of torque. It’s backed by a four-speed automatic. A 1996 Ford F-350 in this configuration can tow a 10,000-pound conventional trailer.
Perhaps The Perfect OBS Ford
As for this particular unit, it doesn’t have much of a story. We’re told that the truck was purchased new, driven approximately 1,668 miles, and then the owner parked his truck in a carport in Louisiana for about 30 years. The truck was parked near the ocean, which explains why some metal parts have more rust than you might expect.
So, let’s go down what you’re looking at here. This is an OBS Ford built like a conversion van with a luxury interior, an eight-foot bed, and one of the greatest truck engines of all time. It even has an automatic transmission for those who don’t want to row gears in their big pickup. On top of that, it has fewer than 1,700 miles.
Oh, and there’s icing on the cake in that it hasn’t just sat for three decades. The selling dealership says it’s sitting on a stack of service records that prove the previous owner got the truck’s maintenance done every year. So it wasn’t racking up miles, but it also wasn’t just sitting and rotting, either. That’s why the coolant still looks new. It’s possible you might be waiting a long time before you ever see a truck like this – if you ever see one again.
Now comes the hard part. The selling dealership, Platinum Motors of Portland, Oregon, wants $69,900 for this truck. That’s insane cash that would buy you a nice brand-new truck. Sadly, there aren’t really good comps for a truck like this. A Centaurus III in the same color and with similar options but 206,600 miles sold for $13,200 at Mecum. One with 101,000 miles sold for $16,012 at Bring a Trailer while another with 62,000 miles sold for $18,000 on the same platform.
So, is being a basically brand-new truck worth $69,900? I’m not sure it is, but it is a seriously awesome truck. Platinum Motors suggests if nobody buys it now, it’ll be thrown to the hounds on Bring a Trailer. So, I guess we’ll get to see what the market says.
Either way, my mouth is watering at this beautiful rig. I just want to hitch up a trailer and haul something across the country with my window down and music up. I’m not sure what you would do with a time capsule like this, but someone is about to get one of the coolest vintage diesel trucks ever built.
(Images: Platinum Motors, unless otherwise noted.)
Knock $60k off the price, and you’ve got a deal!