I’ve been curious if the sellers of the sixth-generation F-Series crew cabs are artificially inflating their prices or if the trucks are actually commanding the, what seem to be, high prices. The market will speak as this 1979 Ford F-250 crew cab is being offered at no reserve here on eBay in Eugene, Oregon. The auction is in its final 24 hours and 65 bids have pushed the current high bid to $19,600.
In the space I typically reserve for production and model facts, I’d like to opine. I really admire the restraint to heavily modify this truck. There’s no big lift, no diesel engine swap, and no over restoration. While the engine has been replaced, the truck has been repainted, and the wheels aren’t original, it isn’t an extreme departure from its original state. It appears to be a truck that is ready for truck duty.
This F-250 recently received a complete repaint. Perhaps someone who is better at decoding Ford data tags can weigh-in, but my research indicates code U is Pastel Sand, which is rather distant on the color wheel from the reddish-orange-brown color on the truck now. The seller describes the quality of the paint as “looks good – not a cheap junk paint job but not show quality job either – a great $7500 daily driver paint job.” The exterior is described as super straight with no major rust issues and is claimed to have never been in an accident.
The black cloth interior looks to be in very good condition. The carpet is new and looks clean, door panels show no wear, and the seating surfaces are new and still look fresh. The dash is painted, what appears to be, a gold color. Perhaps that is the original U-code color?
Under the hood is a 400 cubic-inch V8, which the seller says, “fires up every time with no hesitation.” Power is sent to the rear wheels – or all four when engaged – by a floor-shifted manual transmission. The engine is a remanufactured unit and has only 1,000 miles on it. The seller says, “when cruising down the highway it does very well.”
I’m a fan of crew cab trucks and a vintage example is no exception. You can see by the number of bids alone, I’m not the only who feels that way. So, I ask you two questions: 1) What do you think the final high bid will be? What do you think the final high bid should be?
Nice truck, however, at the time( 1979) we had no idea this vehicle would comprise most of the sales today, they were merely a vehicle to take a crew into the woods or RR track repair. All this tells me, is people are tired of the offerings today, and are finding these new pickups of wizardry are fantastic new, but service is a nightmare, and a simple pickup like this, that does almost the same thing, judging by the bids, is what people want, and are willing to spend 5 figures to get it. Personally, I think they’re nuts, pickups, while they may still look like this, have come a long way, and this is still a ’79 Ford “High Ridin” pickup and will ride, drive and drink gas like one. Just be ready for that.
I sometimes think that some people are getting fedup with having to take their vehicle into a ‘specialist’ for even routine work. I couldn’t believe it when a bodyman told me that, after replacing a front fender on a Dodge Ram, they had to plug in the analyzer to ‘enable’ the circuit so the headlight would come on. Are you kidding me?!?!? Get them too complicated and people start to go against you. You take to the 18 wheelers now, a ten year old truck is worth more than a 3 year old unit, all because drivers want ‘Pre-DEF;’ ‘Pre DPF.’ I was at the truck shop the other day talking to a driver. He told me that in 200K miles the ONLY breakdowns he had were the emission controls, or related to them. Talking to the owner of the dealership and the service manager and they echoed the same things. Trucks like this are more appealing because they open the hood and actually see an engine. And they can still perform basic maintenance procedures. If this truck came to my place I could fix any part of it. But our regular vehicles? “Hey, Fred, my Equinox needs another oil change!” Oh I can pull the dipstick and check the oil level, and fill the windshield washer, and even top up the antifreeze but that’s about the extent of what I can do after 48 years in the repair business…
Geomechs,
I’ve seen your comments over the months I’ve checked into this site now and then and I couldn’t agree with you more. I bought a 2011 F150 crew bc I have teenagers. I told my wife that is either the last truck I get, or I get something MUCH older, like from the late 60s or 70s for all the reasons you mention. I got the 5.0, no crammed in turbos, so I can actually do some stuff on this but man, do I agree with you. In warm months, I commute with either a 2005 Five Hundred or my 63 Comet. I don’t want to go newer and have no reason to.
I love this type of truck. If I already didn’t have a 96 F250 crew 4×4 I would go for something like this.
This truck is listed in a classified elsewhere for $25K. I think that price is justified based on rarity and condition. Very few come up for sale.
In my opinion vintage trucks will continue their rise in price, along with station wagons, vintage SUVs, and 4 door cars. Things like vanilla 2 door muscle will be on their way down, especially those that exist in high numbers like Camaros, Corvettes, Mustang, etc. I know that I would pay more for this truck than any of those and a lot of other people are also starting to feel that way. The times they are a changin.
They just don’t build them like this truck anymore, yes they don’t get great gas mileage and they ride rough but if you want a truck this is what you buy otherwise buy a Toyota Corolla.
Plus there are lots of people who like having a project they can use and improve as they go along. I have 3 old trucks from early 90s w EFI but they are OBD 1 and I have become pretty good working w any OBD 1 truck. My son has learned brake jobs and changing elec fuel punps very well so we are good to go.
I’ve been on this site for a while and most of the reason I’m here is so I can buy vehicles I can drive, enjoy and work on myself!! I got Jeep Wranglers for all three of my children while they were in high school!! The computer controllers on those Jeep’s made me think twice about ever owning a newer car again!! There difficult to diagnose they hate water and when you find out there malfunctioned it costs about 4-500 dollars to get them rebuilt!! I really got sick of throwing money at them!!! So I’m in total agreement with geomechs and 63 comet!! I’m almost there!! I’m still driving my 1999 F-350 diesel but my 71 100 is on the road now and I love it!!!
In an era when new trucks have reached $30k-$70k msrp then the prices of old trucks went high as there are buyers who want a truck, have limited funds, want to stand out in the crowd of everyone driving similar looking new trucks, and on top of it all are not very economically knowledgeable and so they pay a lot for a 30-50 year old truck (which were primitive basic work vehicles) and by doing so keep the “A fool and his money soon part ways” mantra alive.