The Ford Ranchero cartruck went through numerous platform changes over the years, with the full-size sedan-based '57-59s, the compact Falcon-based '60-66s, the mid-sized Fairlane/Torino-based '68-76s, and the bloato-mid-sized LTD-based '77-79s. We saw a beige-and-brown two-tone '79 last summer, and now I've found another two-tone '79 on the island.

Those stacked headlights and monstrous turn signal lights are as 1979 as odd-even gas days. Hey, maybe we'll have those again!


Even though cartrucks aren't really set up for serious heavy hauling, this Ranchero's bed is spacious enough to really test the limits of that LTD rear suspension. How much gravel can you haul in one load? How many pinball machines? How many street-sign shooting armed drunks and associated cases of Mickey's Big Mouth? Cartruck tradition is firmly behind the "test the load limits" school of thought.


You got a 151-horse 351 when you bought a new 1979 Ranchero. Don't dwell on that fact that the '09 Camry's base four-banger gets 158 horsepower out of 144 cubes, because the Ranchero has character!

Send an email to Murilee Martin, the author of this post, at murilee@jalopnik.com.