UPDATE 1/15/19 – This cool, custom 1980 Ford LTD Ranchero is listed for sale again in Shoemakersville, Pennsysvania but this time the price has dropped quite a bit. It can be found here on eBay with a $3,900 starting bid. Thanks to Justin for sending in the tip for this updated listing!
FROM 6/30/18 – Quick, name a few four-door Ranchero/El Camino-type cars! Being a Subaru guy the first one that comes to mind is the now-hot Subaru Baja from the early-mid-2000s. I can’t think of too many more but I know that some of you will be able to. Here’s a custom four-door version, a 1980 Ford LTD Ranchero. This is one cool ride! This example is posted on Craigslist in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania with an asking price of $5,500. The seller says that they may “trade up or down for antique, classic car, truck, hot rod, rat rod, Willys Jeep etc.”
Talk about missing out on a market, or maybe not. Something like this, a nice full-sized car with room for at least five humans with a pickup box on the back, just seems like a no-brainer to me. It must not be since the last one that I can think of, the aforementioned Subaru Baja, only lasted a handful of years. A vehicle that I was seriously considering getting around a decade ago was a Hummer H2 SUT, in orange of course.(I know, for a guy who loves small vehicles! Now the four-door pickup is so common that it’s almost surprising to see a non-company-type pickup with only two doors. At least the H2 was unusual. Their merit, or lack thereof, could be debated for years but they sure were unique. A four-door pickup is most likely not a future collectible, but a Hummer H2 SUT? Unquestionably.
This car used to be an LTD wagon as you all have figured out by now. This is the perfect vehicle for me, room inside and room outside for hauling small motorcycles, junk to the dump.. I mean, the recycling center, and just general hauling – albeit not full-sized loads. The quietness and smoothness of the Ford LTD mingled with a little pickup box on the back. Genius. It looks like a nice conversion but I’m not sure how the materials and gaps and seams will hold up to year round use. It looks like some of the black parts around the rear window is wood, hopefully that’s at least some sort of epoxy paint on there.
The minty-green interior, other than the seats, is a classic 1980 touch. It looks nice in there and you’ll have room in the back seat for at least three of your friends or a couple of dogs. The builder did a nice job on this one. I wish that the seats were the same light green color but maybe dark seats are better for not showing dirt on a utility vehicle when the owner will be actually using it to haul things. This one also has a “Class three hitch with 4 wire plug” so you should be able to pull a trailer very nicely.
That’s no Subaru Baja boxer engine! The seller says that this one is equipped with a “351 Windsor engine, Holley four barrel. Automatic overdrive trans. Working air conditioning. Dual exhaust.” This engine would have had around 140 hp when new. I’m not sure what it has now, a bit more I’m guessing. Can you think of another four-door car-based pickup like the Baja or this LTD?
Seams like a pointless conversion, if you you want a car like this buy a Honda Ridgeline. Frankly he ruined a perfectly good station wagon. Maybe a donor car could be found to refit it back to a proper wagon.
Meh. Seller is too lazy to back it out of the garage and take a photo of the whole thing? Maybe the proportions are so awkward that people wouldn’t come to see it if he did.
Better ways to spend $5K, that’s for sure.
Not exactly a professional job, with the rear window from a camper shell. Just a redneck POS.
Best looking part of this car is the “Tasca” emblem on the tailgate. Ford fans will instantly take note of this.
Good, clean work but it just looks too awkward. That engine would draw laughter from the smog pros in my state of California though.
First thing I picked up on Troy. Loved Tasca back in the days of GT 350’s and Thunderbolts.
Looks like an open hearse. Back it out of the garage. Take pics. I’m a buyer at 2k.
Most anything offered to the seller would be a trade up on this!
Chevrolet Avalanche
Nice Ford Explorer Rims!!
goo fee!
See tree hanging off steering wheel. Not a promising sight. Maybe there to hide scent of what this person was smoking when they decided to chop up this POS
I think it might work if it had a matching cargo in the box. Like a racing quad and both painted in fluorescent green.
Still I think 2500 would be my top dollar and even that would involve some additions on the Honey-Do list for the wife.
They call them crew cap pickups. The only advantage of this lay out is less wind resistance and better ride quality. I can only imagine how much racking the tailgate is going to do over time this will shake it self a part. Next time back it out of the garage so we get a real sence of its proportions.
“…another four-door car-based pickup…”
no, but the 1st of the truck styles was that ford explorer or whatever it was called (Sport?) I’m thinkin?
I wish it was still it’s nice ol fox bodied wagon (“pre-rehab”). Actually lookin 4 one now…
Ford Explorer Sport Trac. On my second one now, a 2010 Adrenalin Package. Last year available. 160K miles. Waiting for the new four door Ford Ranger to replace it.
Yep, I love my ’02. A very handy package – seats 5, leather, sunroof, ice cold AC, bed extender and cover.
I just told my wife this morning that I would like to upgrade it to a new(er) one. They should never have killed the model.
nobody is picking up on the idea that it ” might” be classified as a pick up , more lax on the smog emissions It has piqued my interest
Kinda funky, I like the idea of an “Outback” Ford wagon lifted a little bit with Explorer rims and all-terrain tires.
This is one of those love it or not projects. Nicer ride, lower seat height, Much more rear seat room than a Ridgeline, and looks like about the same size cargo space. I think it’s got the 2 way 5th door/ tailgate. Might even have storage under the bed/ floor, like a Ridgeline!! It’s got the big Ford 9 inch rear, so it should be able to handle anything you want to tow.
No 9 inch rear end, wagons of this era came with a 8.8. Looks like a funeral flower car. Ugh.
This is the kind of vehicle that you offer for a “215” trade.
215 is the term for Medical Marijuana in California.
Holden crewcab station wagon based pick up
This is a factory job
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=holden+crew+cab&client=safari&hl=en-nz&prmd=isvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgttHg1vzbAhVLFpQKHb4gC-IQ_AUIESgB&biw=375&bih=553#imgrc=tvVno8i_TQVV7M:
No comparison. Not the same or even nearly comparable.
No comparison.
None.
Sometimes what happens in the barn should stay in the barn.
I’m not a real Ford fan but this is a crime against those that are.
I think it looks great. Kudo’s to the fabricator !
I was thinking of a “car-based pickup”, as in a car that was a station wagon and it was converted into a pickup by a car company. Not a pickup with four doors or an SUV pickup conversion like a Ridgeline or an Avalanche. Those aren’t “car-based” pickups, they’re pickups with four doors. There is no car version of the Honda Ridgeline, Ford Sport-Trac, or Chevy Avalanche like there is with the Subaru Baja.
The Subaru Baja is what I was thinking of, a pickup that used to be a car. There has to be another one that isn’t a pickup with four doors but a car, i.e., station wagon pickup conversion like the Baja, not an SUV conversion, a car-car. Anyone? Crickets.. Did I run that into the ground enough? Ha.. it must be late.
not my car…seen at a truck show in PA not long ago
not my car pic from a truck show
Not my car
I was kind of curious, Scotty, until you pointed out the wood used to separate the passengers from the cargo. That, and the fact the profile photo shows the obvious lazy cutting done, leaving the rear pillar intact so everyone knows this started out as a wagon. Ugh. I normally like the entertainment value in redneck engineering but this one gives me a bad taste in my (pretty) mouth.
I’m weird and like this kind of stuff. Reminds me of a Ford Explorer Sport Trac.
Hmm, must have missed this one. Comments didn’t transfer like other updates. Most people didn’t like it, I think it’s a great idea. If it was made in the 80’s, somebody sure had a vision for the future. If these car designers would get their touchas out of their rear and offer something like this today, I think it would be a big hit. Not everybody wants a 4×4 behemoth.
BTW, I wonder what occupation is prevalent in Shoemakersville, Pa.? Sorry, couldn’t resist, silly name for a town.
We need edit on EA’s, especially at this hour. I meant, these car designers should get their heads out of their touchas( rear end) and make these.
Someone had a bit of fun converting an LTD into a Ranchero. The bed length looks about as useful as most of the smaller dual-cab pickups, which means that the tailgate has to be left down if one wants to put their dirtbike in the back.
Howard, I think the issue with designers is that they’ve been lumbered with keeping 1970-80s designs alive, as it’s cheaper to update an already amortised model than get creative and design something new and interesting. In my humble opinion, it’s the members of the boards of the various motor vehicle manufacturers who need to get their heads out of their respective tuchases (what is the correct romanised spelling for that particular Yiddish word?) and focus on the long-term, rather than the next quarter’s return-on-shareholders-funds. That’s what just about killed the US Auto Industry in the 1970s.
When the Japanese entered the US market, they had a 25-year horizon that they were working to. Is it any wonder that they came to dominate the marketplace? Of course, the two oil shocks of the 1970s were to their advantage.
Scotty, if you want something really impractical in the way of a pick up – especially with your love of unusual Kei cars – how about the exotic machine pictured above..? (…and yes, I’d be dumb enough to own one..!)
BB, is that a Suzuki Big Boy, big boy? Now that’s my kind of truck! You have one of those, too? It may be easier to list what you don’t own!
Love it. It is well done and for a 1980 looks like it should have been built.
Dcowan, it was built, …. by Ford in 1980, check the sales brochures, it was classed as an LTD light truck.
Update: SOLD to a Mr.Clark Griswold of Chicago. Purchased for those trips to Ho
me Depot on the weekends. 😉 “If you think you hate it now,wait till you drive it “
Wow. That was ugly before people thought ugly was cool.
Absolute waste of a good wagon. That is so ugly.
American ingenuity. You just can’t beat it. Homely, at best, but it just shows what an inspired mind can do with a seemingly blase car. Great show piece. Best in Class, for sure.
I wouldn’t consider copying a picture in the Ford Sales Brochure in the EBay ad ingenuity or inspiring, just a cheaper way out, instead of buying a factory production one designed and built by Ford, and the factory one would be a far better fit and finish to boot !
What a bunch of haters with no imagination. Just can’t stand anything different can you. I think it looks better like this than it did as the box it was.