Driving a Classic Dentside F150 4x4 - The Ford F-Series Has Ruled the Pickup World for Five Decades

SOLD I'm not historically a pickup person. In fact, not at all - but a few years ago, need dictated I buy a pickup to start towing our little Spec Miata to the races. I sought out pickup advice, weighed my budget, and settled on a 2001 Chevy Silverado - widely considered to be an ultra-reliable truck with a proven engine (the 5.3 Liter LS), and decent tow capacity for what I'd be using it for.
It was love at first drive. I'd never really had a truck before, and I very quickly grew used to driving it, to the point it became my daily. I added some stuff here and there to make it more palatable to me, and until the Datsun came along, you couldn't get me out of it at gunpoint. I loved the space, the utility, the V8 power, and the full frame stability. Just like that, I understood America's fascination with the pickup.
I was a late comer. For dacedes now, pickups, and specifically the Ford F-Series, have been the number one selling vehicle in the United States - more than Camrys, Accords, and any other prolific car you can think of - the F150 outsells them all. This either says something about America, or about the F150 - possibly both.
Ford made the first American Pickup back in 1925, and even coined the word "pickup." Since then, the pickup has evolved from a focus on industrial use to the family car of choice for many people. There are large trucks, small trucks, trucks based on cars, off road trucks, luxury trucks, muscle trucks, and just about any other incarnation you can think of. The pickup had become as definitively American as Baseball or apple pie. And we'll go ahead and skip the SUV for now.
With that being said, it's no surprise that older trucks are gaining steam as main-line collectibles. People are restoring them more often, and prices are going skyward at the auctions. Just about every large collection is going to have a truck or two in it.
This is a review of a 6th generation Ford F-Series, a 1977 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4 with a 460 big block tuned by a locally famous Swamp Buggy builder. If you're not familiar with the Swamp Buggy races in Naples, it's an event of sound, fury, mud, mayhem, and rednecks as far as the eye can see. These people are having fun, and you're sure to see nothing but pickups in the parking lots. They are, after all, an American way of life.
Full review and test drive by Bill.