Junkyard Find: 1978 Ford Ranchero

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Ah, the Malaise Era. Some cars are just poster children for the 1973-1983 period of diminished expectations, sclerotic automaker bureaucracy, tape stripes, and the ascendancy of focus-group marketers. Take, for example, the 1977-1979 Ranchero, during which Ford decided to use the massive Thunderbird platform as the basis for their popular cartruck. It should have been a commercial disaster, but in fact it sold quite well.

A “personal luxury” car, with a truck bed!

This example, which I found in a gloomy Northern California self-service yard a couple of weeks back, is pretty much used up.

When cars rust to death in coastal California, they do it like this. During the long rainy season (all winter), water leaks in past the low-bidder weatherstripping and pools beneath the carpeting; GM cars preferred the trunk floor for this process, while Fords went for the front floors.

Ford wasn’t shy about crazy snout treatments in the 1970s; while I think the peak was the 1970 Mercury Cyclone, the MalaiseChero still has some weird style.

Leather!







Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • SuperACG SuperACG on Dec 15, 2011

    Say what you guys will...I like this! Definitely dig the swanky stacked lights, but it needs the oversized aftermarket "pimp grille" so common on the Caddys and Lincolns of the period. If you guys remember the Overhaulin' episode where they took an El Camino with a similar front end, and swapped the "Laguna" face on it...I was upset about that. I just like the "weirdness" of the 70s. Maybe it reminds me of being a kid, but nothing, not even the weirdness of the 80s can surpass 70s charm.

  • Svenmeier Svenmeier on Dec 15, 2011

    I know I'll get flamed for this, but I always thought the Ford LTD II looked quite nice, especially in wagon form. http://stationwagonforums.com/forums/gallery/files/6/1977FordLTDIISquire.jpg

  • Rochester "better than Vinfast" is a pretty low bar.
  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
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