Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe F650 carries a total of 200 gallons of fuel in its four side-saddle tanks. That alone is worth more than many of the cars we look at here. Let’s see if this big-ass truck might be worth its big-ass price.
You know, following the love-fest we all had over Wednesday’s rare and desirable Audi 200 Avant I thought we were all pretty simpatico. I’m not that sure now though. That’s due to the 57 percent Crack Pipe drubbing you dealt to yesterday’s 2002 Chevy Camaro Z28.
I figured that car’s $16,990 price tag was a slam dunk, and marveled that it was offered at that price by a commercial dealer. However, many of you pointed out that there was something fishy about the car’s missing stripes. Quite a few also noted what looked to be evidence of damage repair in the engine bay, a factor that might just explain their absence. Strong work, detectives!
Let’s do some more sleuthing. How long do you spend filling up your car or truck’s fuel tank? I mean, the actually pumping of dead dino, not the waiting in line at Costco because you want to save three pennies a gallon part. Is it about five minutes, tops?
Well, if you owned this 2006 Ford F650 Super Duty you’d spend far more time doing so since it carries a full 200 gallon capacity across its four underslung tanks. You might want to bring a lawn chair.
With the average price of Diesel currently running at about three dollars a gallon here in the U.S., that would also make moving the needle on the fuel gauge a pretty expensive proposition.
Ford’s F-series has been around for a remarkably long time. Many people point to the 1949 Ford car line—the first all-new post war car to come from the company—as the brand’s savior. I challenge that notion. I think that, considering its long-term ramifications, the first F-series—which debuted a year prior in 1948—should be considered the more significant.
Today, the F-series is America’s top-selling vehicle, although most of those are of the more garden variety F-150 models. Few of us have the need, nor the parking accommodations, for a model like this ’06 F650.
The medium duty chassis under this F650 is one that was shared by Ford with Navistar International. It was developed under a joint venture between the two companies. Most of these came with some sort of commercial back end—a flatbed or bobcat back—but this custom truck is set up for civilian use, or at least as close to that as one can get in an F650.
That means a pickup bed, the same piece that you can get bolted to a lesser F-series, and a four-door crew cab up in front of that.
The rest of this truck is just kind of batshit crazy big. There are huge wheels all the way around, and the truck has been jacked up high enough on those that it requires steps in its saddlebag fuel tanks and additional risers below just to get in. The pickup bed is punctuated with exhaust stacks and made extra wide with flares covering the dually back end. Aside from the cool blue paint there’s nothing subtle about this truck, and there’s even add-on chrome on the door latches just to add that extra bit of over the top.
Pull one of those and you’ll be faced with a leather interior with Harley Davidson badged seats. This is a custom job, likely built by a place like SuperTruck so the Harley seats shouldn’t keep you up at night. We don’t get to see much of the interior in the ad, but what we do see looks okay, if in need of a good sweeping out.
The ad does give us some intel on the drivetrain. That’s a Cummins 5.9-litre 12-valve which the seller says makes 500 horsepower. From the factory these were spec’d at about 325 horsepower so this one may be imbued with some aftermarket magic.
Whatever, with big diesels what you really want is torque and at 610 lb-ft out of the box, the Cummins should be able to pull its own weight. An Allison 1000 six-speed automatic backs that up. The whole thing has a modest 132K on the clock.
If you’re considering a truck of this size to serve as compensation for some personal shortcoming, imagined or real, then you’d also have to consider its $50,000 price tag. That’s big enough in itself that if you can afford it, you probably don’t need the truck to overcome the perceived deficiency. If you want to own a truck of such presence to make some other kind of statement, then perhaps that $50K price might be of greater importance.
What do you think, for the right buyer, could this F650 be worth that $50,000 asking? Or, is that just too much compensation?
You decide!
Pittsburgh, PA Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!
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