(first posted 1/6/2013) During the late fifties and sixties, the pickup became ever more “civilized”. In addition to softer suspensions and other amenities, most of that had to do with spiffing up the cab with nicer upholstery, inside door trim, padded dashes, fancy steering wheels…but no one had yet taken the plunge and installed genuine bucket seats. Undoubtedly inspired by the success of the Mustang, Ford offered a Ranger cab trim option for 1965 that included buckets–straight out of the Mustang.
The Ranger trim package had to be ordered in addition to the Custom Cab option. It included both the buckets and a covering behind them designed to conceal the old-style, in-cab gas tank. The console, out of a ’63 Falcon Sprint or Comet S-22, was an additional option.
It’s impossible to get production stats on how many Ranger-equipped F100s and F250s were made, but from what one can glean, not many, as they’re quite rare now. But then, they’re also easy to clone since the parts are readily available. In any case, the buckets went bye-bye in 1967, and the Ranger became the top-trim pickup–but with a good old bench seat, just as God intended pickups to have.
Did these pickups mark the end of Ford’s experiment with unit-body pickups?
These were body on frame construction. The “unibody” that people refer to was when the 1961-62 models tried to make the cab and the bed one structure. The product planners must have forgotten how much a loaded pickup will flex, because the separate cargo box was back back by 1963.
PN dealt with one of those unibody pickups here. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1962-ford-styleside-f-100-pickup-that-most-feminine-truck/
I have a one owner 1966 Ford Ranger pickup. It has bucket seats and console. I have original title and owners manual. Tommy Stanfill 423-667-2167
enjoy. I had one , but lost it thru a divorce. mine was solid red, automatic and I had the tank, doors and kick panels covered with matching carpet. widened wheels with grand national tires, trim rings and spinner centers
. chrome bed rails. and the tailgate ford accent from the 67.
Do you want to sell it
Jack in San Diego 619-454-4220
Are you looking for a 1966 f100 withe deluxe ranger package? If so I have one for sale or Craigslist in Atlanta GA. I saw your comments about buying one on a blog I was reading and yes I am legit. 770-468-8591
Is your Ranger still available? Thanks, Dave 352-441-0645
I have a 65 f100 custom cab ranger for sale all original . Needs restored
I have a very nice 66 ranger. I may sell it , if you are interested.
I have a 66 ranger bucket seats all original bard find 812-865-0260
I’m interested in the Ranger bucket seats if you still have them ?
Thanks, Jaan. 971 235-9599
I have a 1966 f-100 ranger, black with red interior. It’s got a 352 three speed on the colom with an overdrive system. Have seen another one like it.
I have a 66 f100 3 speed on the col. would like to install power steering on it does anyone know best and easy way of doing this?
Hi there to everyone reading this post . I absolutely love this model truck, and am looking to call one my own. Please reply back if you own one, or know of one for sale. Thank you in advance … Best to you and yours … J.R.
Hi! I have a 1965 Ranger matching #, 3 on the tree. It was my Dad’s. Low miles. Loved like a baby. $60 k original manuals. West of Atl approx 1 hr. Call 404-831-2242 if serious only. Will not ship. It’s an awesome truck!
I have a very nice one. I will retire soon, and would sell it.
Where I grew up (south Jersey), pickups in the 60s were only bought by farmers, and were used purely for work. There was a car in the household for the wife to drive for shopping or for use in going to church. As such, the pickups had the base level vinyl interior and vinyl mat on the floor. I got to know a lot of farmers through my dad’s job (county agent for our county), and the farmers of that era would have thought any interior upgrade to be a useless waste of money.
Was Ford catching a whiff of the faux-cowboy trend in the suburbs of Dallas and Hoiuston, and hoping to cash in early?
This was also the mind-set and the usual reaction to pick up trucks in the suburban tract housing subdivision that I grew up in during the 1960’s.
The Sears & Roebuck repair man had the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to park his pick up truck IN THE DRIVEWAY of my Mother’s pride and joy home!
She hissed at my Father, shaking her finger at him, Dad hustled outside to ask the man if he would mind parking the truck in the street. Later on, Dad said he and the repairman got a good chuckle out of my Mother’s housewife fury.
I had not idea that a bucket-seat Ranger was ever offered. I owned a 63 F-100 that was the polar opposite of this truck, with virtually no creature comforts at all. I never thought that the Custom Cab of that era was all that luxurious, but this one is really nice. But certainly 20 years ahead of its time.
Yes, quite the contrast to the interior of my truck.
Hi there good sir, and thank you very much for this insightful post. I absolutely love this model truck, and would love to call one my own. Any recomendations on where I might find one?
Thanks again, and all the best to you & yours
Johnny Ranger
I just started restoring a ’63, standard cab. Only option I can see is an armrest on driver’s door (but not passenger).
Buckets and a console? Far out man…
That just reminds me that my Dad’s 67 Mustang with bucket seats and an automatic floor shift has no console at all. Its a little “weird” to my modern eyes to see bare carpet between two bucket seats, although I’m sure it was quite common in those days.
The early Mustangs (65-67) that family and friends bought had no consoles, I’m sure to keep costs down (who can forget that entry price figure of $2368 on every billboard in the country?). I believe you could order one as an option but you rarely ever saw them in the early years.
Never knew you could get the Ranger with that handsome interior – never saw one so equipped in the midwest when growing up. Trucks were workhorses and I rarely saw one that had any creature comforts.
A friend of mine once had a 68 Mustang hardtop with a bench seat and of course a floor shift for the auto-box…no console. Kind of strange but even then we knew that this had to be very rare!
That stylish but inefficient console was a serious “space robber” in that small interior.
Did Ford see a defined market? Or was it taking a shot in the dark by applying the same approach to trucks that had been so successful with its compacts? That is, take a basic, economy-focused design, dude it up with fancy features and charge more. Cha-ching!
By the mid-60s the car-based trucks had taken a more sporty turn. Kaiser-Jeep was experimenting with more car-like interiors as well.
One thing I find interesting about Ford trucks is that they kept using 1950s color schemes.
Bucket seats in a standard cab pickup was – and still is- a stupid idea, especially with a column shift.
“Stupid” may be a bit harsh; I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you’ve just not thought through situations other than your own, and not simply being an @$$. 🙂
For example: Being tall, there are times I wish I could leave my seat all the way back and scoot the passenger’s seat forward just enough to stow my briefcase/computer bag behind it.
Split bench works for this too.
I had a hard time finding a newer F-150 that didn’t have a huge center console. I wanted the extra seat. Much more handy. My driver and passenger seats are the same as the console models, and even has decent storage when the center seat back is folded down. I think it’s pretty hard to justify the console models, but that’s what most of them are.
I don’t know- I’m 5’7 on a good day and love my bench seat. Why? Because my rather tall mate who loves to take the p*** out of me for being short of stature gets his comeuppance whenever we have to take a road trip and his knees are against the (solid not veneered walnut) dashboard. fun times. My old Dakota with its solid bench (and cheap scratchy plastic dashboard) was even more fun for punishing the vertically gifted.
It’s funny that there’s a story on the “luxurification” ( a made-up word) of the pick-up truck. I don’t know anything about trucks, but I always wondered what older people who remember trucks of the fifties and sixties think of today’s trucks with leather seats, power everything, nav systems, etc. What a totally different environment for a truck.
Sweet. Definitely ahead of its time, and I agree with Don K that at this time truck buyers had to puzzle over why they’d pay extra for this when a truck was just a means to an end.
Now, in the grand scheme of things I suppose these trucks weren’t that much ahead of their time, because I remember visiting a friend of mine in Houston in the fall of either ’83 or ’84, and seeing there was a standard set of vehicles in front of every house in the FM 1960 area NW of the city, consisting of a large German sedan (MB or BMW), a large plastiwood-sided American station wagon, and a 4×4 pimped out as much as they could be in those days, so it was only 18 or so years until pickups had conquered suburbia, at least in Texas.
I suppose from Ford’s point of view they were pretty much using shelf parts so there was no risk in offering a package like this. It’s just that in those days pickups were still pretty much exclusively working vehicles, and ease of cleanup inside (manure if you’re a dairy farmer, just plain mud if you’re growing tomatoes or sweet corn) was a plus far outweighed any coolness factor from having an upgraded interior. I mean, these were farmers who pretty much to a man didn’t even opt for the AM radio.
Well, of course that was in Houston…….
HaHaHa!
(Just Kidding)
Ford wasn’t the only one to gamble on this. Dodge did the same thing with a D-100 Sweptline and the Palomino
http://web.archive.org/web/20090408055125/http://www.sweptline.com/hist/rtest2.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20090408055115/http://www.sweptline.com/hist/rtest1.html
A 360 horse 413 in an early 60’s pickup? I’ll bet that caught a few musclecars napping, if they actually built any.
Although I imagine traction would be a problem without a load.
Apparently at least some of them were… check it out: http://www.cssregistry.com/
According to Allpar, Chrysler only authorized 50 trucks to be built with this engine per year – 413 in 1963 and then the 426 (“Street Wedge”) from ’64-’66, but less than that were actually produced. It could only be ordered as part of a $1,200 option package that included power steering, tachometer and automatic transmission – which was still using pushbuttons in ’63-’64, how cool is that?
This is all entirely new to me and I think it’s pretty amazing stuff. I’ve always thought the ’62-’64 Dodge pickup had such a brutal, industrial look to it. Racing stripes, big blocks and bucket seats create quite an awesome contrast. The GMC V6 pickups have long been my ultimate 60’s truck fantasy, but I think this might be a little cooler. Considering their rarity, I’m gonna guess they’re way out of my price range though. There’s one on display at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum – hopefully I’ll get to see that one day at least.
Yes, that was the first real muscle truck. I covered the ’64 Dodge Custom Sports here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/truckstop-classic-1967-dodge-d-200-camper-special-were-number-three-so-we-try-harder-dude/
And it had buckets, so the Ranger really wasn’t the first. My bad, for spacing that.
When I was searching for info on them, the CC article on the Camper Special was one of the first results that came up… that’s before my time, though. I only discovered this site in 2012 and haven’t read everything prior to my arrival, yet.
That’s one sharp truck. I’ll take mine with a 300 six and 4 speed please. I have seen a few fancy Fords from this era but never one with buckets. I can’t imagine many were sold this way. Very nice.
I never knew these existed. Was the gas tank covering made of cardboard like the GMs were?
We had a ’64, red and white also! The cover was made out of vinyl with snaps to hold it in place.
Cool, thanks for the answer!
I had a 1966 F-100 Ranger. Wonderful truck and drew attention everywhere it went. Would love to have it back. The gas tank covering was patterned cardboard like the headliner. I HAD MATCHING CARPET PUT OVER MINE ALONG WITH CARPETED KICK PANELS AND LOWER DOOR COVERINGS. Beautiful red exterior with a burgundy interior and black padded dash.
it was from the factory. but I had mine covered in carpet to match the floor
Neat truck! Never seen one before either, and I was raised in rural MN. BTW that is a 64/65 console from a Falcon Sprint or Comet Cyclone, not a 63……..totally different. I love the wrap around dash/door panels.
The wheel covers look like the 69 XLs…….
I love those wheel covers, think they were used on a few different model Fords… no idea which, though.
Ah yes those wheel covers I am 95% sure I can dig in to the car spotters guide I have and find Fords Chevy’s and more pars all sporting those. To any one of you fine folks have information as to what exactly those were?
BTW I like the pic showing the old and new Interiors next to each other. The new F150 character door dip design (Kenworth Daylight Door) has it’s own Ford origins…….maybe!
“In any case, the buckets went bye-bye in 1967, and the Ranger became the top-trim pickup–but with a good old bench seat, just as God intended pickups to have.”
Oh no, they did not! Bucket seats were available on the next series 1967-1972 “Bumpside” trucks. Check out fordification.com for more info.
Here’s a 1967 interior with buckets.
I meant standard as part of the Ranger package. But optional, yes.
They had some other interesting options on the ‘bumpside’ trucks, scanned a sales brochure I found in my 70 XLT. I’d like to find one with the generator mounted on the inner fender. At least in 70, if you got the bucket seats, you had to have the under bed frame mounted auxilary tank. You can tell if a truck was buckets from the factory, it won’t have a hole in the cab for the gas filler.
The rest of the brochure is at:
https://sites.google.com/site/1970fseriessalesbrochure/
how do I find the exterior trim for the 66 ford ranger pick-up?
I still find it odd that Ford did not offer a clock nor tach in their light duty trucks until 1980. Someone PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong…because I want to be wrong actually.
The AM/digital clock radio in 1979 doesn’t count, btw.
[I posted a comment on this yesterday, but mine and a bunch of other replies seem to have disappeared today]
Never mind, got the two different truck threads confused (at what age should somebody stop driving the computer?).
To all the seating Luddites: The pickup truck, like the sports car and the motorhome, are made by Man and intended to be occupied by Man. Or by Woman, if you will.
That means…”bucket” seats are not only natural but obligatory.
I’d never thought about it before…but ALL my cars have had “bucket” seats. Starting with a VW Super Beetle…on to a lowly Chevette…several Pintos…an Escort…a Datsun King Cab pickup (those were comfortable buckets!) on to the modern era with a couple of minivans, a Jeep YJ, and now my econobox Toyota fetish.
I remember bench seats….in 1964 and 1966 Chevrolets; in a 1968 Jeep Wagoneer; in a 1968 Ford Galaxie and a 1973 Torino. As a kid, I disliked them. Now as an adult, I cannot IMAGINE them, without side support. Why in the name of all that’s sacred, would someone craft car seating like church pews?
BTW, the Ranger pictured above belongs to me. I bought the original 42,000 mile truck in Colorado and restored it myself.
when I built my 66ford ranger I bought a 64.5 tic/tack and fit on the sterring wheel as if ford planted it there.has dealer correct chromed ac,side worm gear power steering,428 P.I. ragoon red–factory. repaint no rust.put a nice 3 duce breather on 4 brl carb red valve covers to match breather and brushed fins.390GT headers fit like factory.chromed hood hinges,latch. found a good metal grill and chromed,also all light bezels. still has 3 speed. had ford dealer shop to lower front about 2-3 in and re alighn.all new brakes. front plastic spoiler/air dam new for a 70’s chev fit perfect. had 77 lincoln cont inter installed new every where except dash. H.D stablizers ft and rear. had 2 cup holders upholstered into the console custome chromed door handle scratch guards. 428 fender badges. a lot of other things,I’m tired now.
I had a 1966. wonderful truck.
I happen to have both a 1966 F-100 Ranger and a very rare 1966 F250 Ranger. Both highly optioned V-8 trucks. The Ranger Registry shows only 3 F250 Rangers. The F100 Ranger has the elusive 3spd OverDrive trans. With a tall final gear of 2.275 it gets nearly double the mpg of typical versions.
These are just such good looking trucks and it seems that everyone loves them. I had so many pleasant conversations about my truck wherever I stopped. All kinds of people either owned one, or their parents, grandparents or other relatives had one when they were a child. A bright red old truck is just a people magnet. Here’s a picture of mine.
You are right and it truly amazes me. Between the five old cars that I have, which include a 68 Cougar and Mustang, my truck gets all the attention. From a guy coming down the street waving his hand out the window at me, to cars pulling up alongside me on the freeway, and to men approaching me in a parking lot as I get out. The two that follow behind happen to be the two full size cars rarely seen at all nowadays.
I have upgraded the engine to a 390 as you did but no block hugging headers as I ponder the originality of the change. Does have 12V Pertronix, manual steering, drum brakes, AM radio with hidden hookup for iPod, and oil bath air cleaner. Have the same white pockets which took a long time to source.
Mine was a 1966 F250 Custom Cab Camper Special. The 352 had been replaced with a 390 boasting an Edelbrock intake manifold with a Holley four barrel carb. A set of tubular headers with an electronic ignition conversion. These were common modifications back in the late ’70s in an attempt to increase fuel mileage. Not too effective as 390s are well known to be gas guzzlers! Mine had power brakes with manual steering and a transistorized AM radio. Nothing like a new GMC. Here’s a picture of the door panel. It had a white ribbed plastic panel on the top half a white vinyl zip door pocket. That and the hardboard headliner, That’s real luxury!
I’ve never seen a motor that could suck gas like a Ford FE!
Very nice truck, but that door looks like it’s frowning. Just got a peek at the gas mileage, maybe. 😉
My brother had a 67 Ford Ranger back in the 70s. Red and white , no power steering or brakes, it was a handful to drive. You know that truck was sure pretty, it was very dependable too ,had the 390 and did suck the gas.
CC effect-I saw one of these at work yesterday, a 64 I believe.
I have a 65 F100’Ranger with 19,000 original miles for sale. it is red with a 352 and 3 speed overdrive bucket seats and console, garaged it’s whole life, it is in very good shape and runs like a top located in Montana I am asking 30 k for it (406) 670-7223 please call or email for more pics
Why do some 1965 F100 Custom Pickups have different Grills??????
I have a 1966 ford Ranger if you are interested,