For those of you who complain that they don’t make ’em like they used to, here is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. May I present this nearly-new 1996 Ford F-150 XLT that just popped up on eBay?
1996 was the final year of this generation of F-150, which traces its bones back to the 1980 redesign. 1997 would bring an entirely new, more aerodynamic (and much less truckish looking) generation of F-150s.
I spent the better part of my high school and college years beating F-150 trucks from this vintage while cleaning job sites for my Dad’s roofing company and other construction companies, and I can attest firsthand to the stoutness of these trucks’ bones.
This F-150 is very typical of what truck buyers were purchasing in 1996. Look! An honest-to-gosh bench seat! Not even split down the middle, with a fold-down center armrest being the only modest concession to comfort.
While quad-cab pickups are now the norm and it seems as if they’ve been around forever, Ford didn’t introduce their SuperCrew until 2001. In 1996, your F-150 had just two doors and a single row of seating, unless you sprung for the SuperCab, in which case you got a very tiny bench seat in the back. If you wanted four full doors, you had to step up to either the F-250 HD Crew Cab with a 6 3/4 foot bed, or an F-350 Crew Cab with a whopping 8 foot bed – a pretty unwieldy package.
What’s that I see sprouting from the floor? A five-speed manual transmission, the only proper truck transmission as dictated from on high. The only thing that would make it better would be a three-on-the-tree, like the trucks in my Dad’s fleet had, but alas that setup was no longer available in 1996.
Still, by 1996 truck standards, this truck is equipped fairly well, including “still blows cold” air conditioning (could have used that on the job site!), 4-wheel drive (ditto), cruise control, and a tilt steering wheel. Also present is the optional EFI 5.0L V8, good for 205hp, still sporting all the tags and decals from the factory. While I occasionally drew a V8-equipped whip from the truck fleet (which made the trips to the job site far more interesting), more often than not they had the ancient (and funny sounding) 4.9L inline six, which honestly was more than adequate for most use cases that didn’t involve towing. 1996 was also the last year for the 300 cu-in I6.
No mention is made as to how this truck managed to spend almost 30 years on this Earth while covering just over 3,500 miles of it. I’m sure there’s an interesting story, but alas we are left to speculate. The seller does make the rather difficult-to-believe claim that the truck has been stored in temperature-controlled storage that entire time, and has never even been rained on.
Then again, based on the photos, there is nary a spot of rust to be seen on the underside, with the grease pencil markings from the factory still visible, so maybe there is some merit to this claim after all.
What price for this piece of automotive perfection? Well, there’s the rub. We all know truck prices are through the roof now, and apparently that applies to pristine 28-year-old models just as much as it does new ones. The seller of this rig is asking $65,495, a tidy sum indeed. That’s a lot of hay, but hey, where are you going to find another one like this? There’s always that “Make Offer” button.
Still, for that same amount of cabbage, you could get a brand-new 2023 F-150 Lariat. While that 2023 Lariat does include such niceties as a full factory warranty, acres of LCD screens, and a proper back seat, it comes with neither a bench seat, manual transmission, wing windows, nor a cassette player, so I guess it really comes down to what you value the most in a truck.
I owned one of these (with 6 and stick) and am in no way nostalgic, especially at $65K. No matter how it was stored, it’s going to need new tires and service parts are already getting scarce. Insurance is going to be a problem- to the insurance company, it’s just a 28 year old truck and with a NY zip code on the bill-of-sale, it’s worth scrap value. I doubt the new owner can even get collision coverage unless it’s through a specialty ‘collector car’ company. I think the owner waited too long to put this on the market, like 18 years too long.
Insurance shouldn’t be a problem. Hagarty (and other classic car insurance companies) will do a “stated value” policy where you can pretty much buy however much coverage you are willing to pay for. This is how most classic cars are insured, since they are more than just used cars.
But I agree, anyone who is going to drive this even a little bit is going to reduce the value, which I guess in that regard makes it a lot like any other brand-new truck.
Realistically, the next owner is unlikely to to anything with this truck other than carefully store it away for the subsequent owner. It really belongs in a museum.
Hagerty insures anything over 25 years but old if the buyer states it’s worth $65,000, Hagerty will have to assess that and come up with a workable premium. They will likely balk at that value.
I agree…super nice but not that nice
$65K is a lot of money for something that won’t be worth anywhere close to that once someone starts to drive it even conservatively. Obviously the only way it could hold its value for the next owner is if they too want to keep it locked up in a warehouse for the next 30 years. Could happen, I guess.
Beyond that foolishness, this is a nice truck.
They’ve put almost 20 miles on it since buying it in October 2022.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1996-ford-f-150-15/
Ah geeze…I was going to say in my comment that the only place where they’d get this kind of money for such a thing is Bring a Trailer – Your Online Home for Irrational Exuberance. 😉
I don’t know who’s wackier…the person who paid $36K for this 2 years ago, or the person who is now trying to nearly double their money. Oh wait…that’d be the same person.
Sold for $36k there in 2022. So now they want almost twice as much? Good luck with that.
Well at least the seller got to enjoy it for a few miles before selling it again.
I suspect that the fate of this truck is to be eternally flipped by profit-seekers.
Most definitely on the flipped merry-go-round, like a lot of others similar to this, nowadays.
Seems the eBay seller sells only vehicles based on current listings and feedback.
Those are nice trucks primarily because they can take a beating (and they have wing windows). Hard to justify the $65k price, unless one is the Henry Ford Museum and this is the missing link in the collection.
A seriously nice truck here but entropy is a real thing with low mileage vehicles .
At $30K it was a pretty good buy if you like this sort of work truck, I do .
I wonder what the next buyer will do with it ? .
-Nate
I relate to the museum idea. I think a Ford Dealership could display this in their showroom as a conversation peace, but not sure any would want to invest that much right now with the dealership model currently being on trial.
Greatly increasing the nostalgia, the fact it wears the 1980 era styling. Last year for it in ’96.
The low mile thing is odd to me in terms of desirability, if you used this as a driver it is virtue of its little dash display destined to depreciate dollar by dollar mile after mile eventually to the point it’s worth that of of any other F150, even if you took good care of it. Mileage really doesn’t matter all that much with bonafide collectable classic cars – a Hemi Cuda convertible could have rolled the odometer twice over and it would still fetch 7 figures. Low mileage survivor might add an extra aura worth a premium, but not to the disparity levels between this and an otherwise identical F150 with 10x the miles.
If you can’t drive it you’re just playing caretaker to it and while I have nothing bad to say about this generation F series I can think of a lot of other vehicles I’d prefer to just stare at and not drive.
There seems to be a speculation thing going on with low mile 80s-90s cars where investors are hedging their bets on the low mile ones, taking the best examples from reach of the normal middle class market cars and trucks like that had existed in, it’s happening rapidly to Fox Mustangs and I’m even seeing it in the MN12 market lately which everybody used to shun – but now the odd low mile car that 10 years ago someone like me would buy for $5k (well above blue book) is now listed for $15,000. I know it’s not the Thunderbird and Cougar community driving up these prices, it’s a small cult following, one I personally am in tune to a large chunk of, so who is paying these escalating prices, where are the dealers/consigners? Pulling these figures from?
This seems to have been a good generation for Ford. Many of them are still doing roofing and yard work.
What would be better than the Mazda 5-speed transmission would be a good ole Warner T-18 4-speed.
I was a Ford Truck guy until I owned a 1991 F-150 (after owning two 1977 F-150s and a 1985 F250). Could never get it running right – the emission controls/intake/ignition systems always seem to have problems. I’m 70 years old now and I hope my 2004 GMC Sierra 1500 lasts the rest of my driving life (currently 109,000 miles).
65K? Crack pipe.
That Mazda trans was a real weak point. In my Shop Foreman days the company I worked for had around 20 of these in both 2wd and 4wd versions, 1992 models. If one trans missed being replaced at least once I don’t remember it. My assigned unit, gently driven, packed it at about 50,000 km. For ’93 we went with the E4OD automatic. Also problematic, but not as quick to develop problems.
Otherwise, not bad trucks but we got a lower total cost of operation from the the GMCs we bought from ’94 on. The guys who had to drive them liked the GMCs better as well, for the most part.
I hope this one finds a good home, but it’ll just be another old truck if the owner decides to drive it any amount.
The Mazda R2 was a good gearbox provided the oil was changed per the book and ATF was used as the lubricant. I’ve seen them filled with EP gear oil, which will kill them quick. The chlorine in the EP oil will attack the brass synchros, and gear oil is too viscous to reach the needle bearings the transmission used. I know of a couple R2s that were still going strong at 300K when trucks were scrapped.
After reading the seller’s eBay advertisement, I’d say that he has a thing for exclamation points, but not necessarily reality. !!!!!!
And the arbitrary use of other punctuation. Not that there’s anything “wrong” with that. As has been said here, take it outdoors a few times and it’s another “old” truck.
I ended up moving on from my 1997 Toyota T100 mostly because after 20 years (mostly not mine) the interior was falling apart and OEM trim and upholstery was unobtainium. Mechanical parts and repairs are easy by comparison. So a clean and tidy vehicle from this era is very appealing. And if low miles and storage is what it takes, I’m ok paying a premium price. But not $65K.
It would be worth $65k if the seller included about $55k in the glove compartment. Otherwise, no.
Frankly, I would be hesitant to drive this thing as is. Old fuel, belts, hoses, tires, and who knows what else.
Friend of mine at work in 1995 got a new once. Six and 5-sp manual and he went from Toronto to Northern Ontario to get it. Said there were no base manuals with roll-up windows in the big city.
His party trick for the guys out back every morning was starting it, clutch out, in Reverse gear from his parking place.
I just scrapped a 94 in 2023, had the 6 and a 5 spd, still ran good but it had a terminal case of the Ohio tinworm. Frame rotted through.
Paid $800 for it in 2008, got $700 for scrap due to the catalytic converters.
All I can think of is the bolts snapping off when the water pump gives out in 5k miles. Or maybe my experience with an old low-mile 5.0 was atypical.
I will never inderstand why anyone would buy a cool car or truck, and then don’t drive it.