These two classic Ford cartrucks have been picked over pretty well, so at least we know that other Rancheros (and probably Falcons and Comets) will benefit from the resulting organ transplants.

Okay, you can put away your pitchforks and torches, the Omega convertible is gone. A surprisingly modest 69% of you went Crack Pipallistic on the sad little Olds from our neighbor to the north. That car's $2,000 price tag seemed woefully egregious to you, despite the open aridness the custom roof afforded. Today we have another heavily modified candidate with an asking price of twenty Benjamins - a Ford Fairmont racing truck.

Yeah, you heard that right.

It's been a good week for Ford wagons her on NPOCP - what with the stock '66 a few days ago - which was universally feted for its wonderful wagonocity. And now we have a Fairmont wagon which has been turned into a 289-powered, one of a kind race truck. And the seller - who is sadly out of work due to broken hand - is seemingly willing to unload this remarkable machine for a mere two grand.

There's so much good going on in this car that it's hard to know where to start. The beefcake appearance of the brawny 289 in the hood-less engine bay? The shortened roofline and Ranchero-esque open bed? Maybe it's just the whole idea of a Fairmont race truck? There's a lot to take in.

So, what's your take on the two grand asking price for this dragster Fairmont-in-drag? Does that price set your spidey sense a tingling? Or has this Fairmont strayed too far down the modded path to warrant such a premium?

You decide!

WKRP Craigslist, or go here if the disappears. Hat tip to patocaster!

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We're happy to add Mr. Gray's shots to Jalopnik Car Photography Canon, which includes the work of such photographers as Dave Glass, Martin Taylor, Andrew Bush, Troy Paiva, and Paul Novak. Here's what Mr. Gray has to say about his American Cars project:

As the project grew, I realized I was approaching the parked cars in the same way a photographer would shoot a portrait. Whether gleaming and restored, or beat-up and deteriorating, each car had its own character and story. The American landscape serving as backdrop is also part of the story of these cars, which were mostly produced here in the U.S. before the decline of Detroit's big automotive companies. I photographed the cars as I found them, using mostly medium format cameras, as well as some large format and digital cameras.

[Kevin Gray Photography, Order prints from Etsy]

The elegant flying buttresses of the XJS are a perfect setup for a truck bed in the back, easily accomplished in this case with the removal of the trunk lid and the installation of a bulkhead and some aluminum plates. We'd have preferred some nice teak bed boards held in place with chrome strips, but beggers can't be choosers. It's definitely a helluva lot nicer than the clapped out version we saw in Project Car Hell. Now all it needs is some llamas in the back. [Autoblog.it]

VR6John caught this Ranchero- which I'm pretty sure is a '63 (I'm at Murilee Martin Field HQ in Denver at the moment, so I don't have my reference library handy) over the summer, and it's time everyone got a chance to check it out. Love the 260 emblems! Here's what VR6John has to say:

hey Murilee...

saw this ranchero outside my office in SF...might be good for a DOTS-SF

comes with a dog too...this is down the street from the the little italian job you nabbed.

For 1966, Ford based the Ranchero on the midsized Fairlane, rather than the compact Falcon used as the basis for the 1960-65 models. The standard Ranchero engine remained the reliable ol' 200-cube six, but high rollers could opt for the 200- or 220-horsepower 289 V8. The price for the base '66 Ranchero was $2,218, or $133 more than the cost of an F-100 half-ton pickup.


This will be the only DOTS vehicle this week; after posting a street-parked Alameda car every single weekday since May 2007, I need a break. Don't worry, the island hasn't run out of old cars!

The Ford Ranchero is no stranger to Alameda; so far we've seen this '64, this '65, this '68, this '79, and this '79 in this series. Today we've got a Ranchero work truck with a nice flame job (flames always run the risk of looking clichéd, but I think they almost always look good on a Falcon-based Ranchero).


In 1965, the Ranchero was still called a "Falcon Ranchero," and you paid $2,095 for one. That got you the uninspiring-but-reliable 170-cube six with a three-on-the-tree manual transmission. The base '65 El Camino- which was a bigger vehicle- sold for $2,272, but the tough choice for Ford truck shoppers might have been the F-100-versus-Ranchero decision: just $1,981 for a Styleside F-100 pickup. Of course, the Ranchero was the better choice if driving comfort was more important than load capacity.

Thanks to The Kid for the tip! [eBay Motors]

I found this customized Ranchero parked in front of Mel's Bowl, just after sunset on a Friday. That's right- the owner is rolling on shomer Shabbas! Then there's the additional blasphemy of a Maverick emblem on the tailgate; normally we aren't purists about such things, but Maverick? Still, this Ranchero is in good shape and the custom touches are fairly subdued for the most part.


A 289 4-speed Ranchero! Of course, it might actually have the 5.0/T5 combo torn out of a Fox Mustang- a very common swap in these things- but that's OK with us. Since you couldn't get a 289 in the '64 (the 260 was the Ranchero's optional V8 that year), originality isn't really an issue here. In fact, this could be a 1965 model with a '64 grille; providing an additional clue, the hood ornament is a '65 item. In that case, a 289 could be original equipment. Ranchero experts, what do you say? Before you answer, take the poll!

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Hey Jalops

User Crazygutgut here.
I was driving down 19th Ave (in San Francisco) on Saturday July 5th when I spotted the "Escachero." I wonder if the guy is a fan, cause he spraypainted Escachero on the doors.

Most of the car is a 90ish Ford escort. the back of the cab seems to be made from a 60's Chevy or Ford pickup. the fins I'm not sure what those came off of, they looked pretty rough, but he did have "Coupe de Ville" scripts on the fins.

I still gotta get picks of the 1977 Honda Civic-amino that is driving around my hood, too....

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!

After spending the late 50s as a big, unwieldy cartruck based on the full-sized Ford Ranch Wagon, the Ranchero then became a small, easy-to-park Falcon cartruck. You could get this generation of Ranchero with a 144- or 170-cube inline six engine, or step up to the 260 or 289 Windsor V8.


This example doesn't show any 289 badges on the fenders, though it may have been fitted with a V8 since being built. Overall, it's a very solid and rust-free machine, and it's good to see it parked on the street every day.


But was the Falcon-based Ranchero too small for serious truck use? I had a '60 for a while and it did fine for my purposes, but I'm not a big hauler of large quantities of hay bales, sacks of cement, or livestock. And, yes, that's a really clean '65 Impala in the background; I'll get some photos if it I see it parked on the street.

Item Description 1981 FORD PICKUP, 1981 Ford Durango Pickup; Factory authorized truck by National Coach Works in CA. for FoMoCo. Doc papers and door decal, inc. reman 5.0 roller w/ auto od, pearl blue pnt, cream interior. PS, PB, 134a AC, duals, rebuilt suspension. Email for details. $24,500 OBO. Please call home number 904-269-0771 call cell 904-616-6065

The problem with an El Camino as a Project Car Hell entrant is that it's just too easy. Even the most decrepit example shares most of its components with made-by-the-millions cars that benefit from a vast reproduction parts industry and pool of junkyard parts, making the parts-obtainment process nowhere near hellish enough. But when you get into an El Camino that's been converted into a drag race car in someone's back yard... well, now we're talking! See, what you really want to take to the dragstrip is a vehicle with apocalyptic amounts of power combined with zero weight over the drive wheels, preferably with drum brakes on at least two wheels. Watch the video below and tell us you don't envy the El Camino drag racer!



The Camino above probably cost quite a bit to build, but you say you want to run 10s on a shoestring budget? Picking up this '73 El Camino (go here if the ad disappears) for $4,000 (or less) would start you well on your way to the dream of getting all sideways out of the lights and munching the guardrail at high speed! This one has a small-block with tunnel ram and dual 4-barrel carbs... but the seller neglected to specify much else about the engine, including its displacement. Is there a dead-stock '73 350 (as the "numbers-matching" part seems to indicate) beneath that intake? What about the rear end- does it have a 2.73 one-legger 10-bolt to go with those ladder bars? We can't say!

Where's the fun in a cartruck just like countless others, you ask? Right! You're not like the others, are you? That's why your cartruck needs to be a luxury model that no automaker would have Caminoized in their wildest DMT-inspired hallucinations... say, something like this 1990 Lincoln Mark VIIchero (go here if the ad disappears). The seller says it was "done pretty nice," and we'd agree; it appears to have a functioning tailgate, and that's what sets the hurried backyard hack jobs apart from the patient backyard hack jobs! Watch out, though, because this machine needs TLC... and you know what that means in a Craigslist ad. Anyone who knows these Lincolns is going to groan a bit when they read "air suspension fills and raises car alittle," but all the hours de-sagifying the suspension will be worth it when you start heaving sacks of cement into your Mark VIIchero, not even deigning to glance at those lowly proles loading up their boring old F-150s. Overall, this thing seems fairly solid, needing only a supercharger on the 5.0 and perhaps a more distinguished paint color to cover any conceivable cartruck need.

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