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Just to make sure we start off on the right foot: I’m no purist. You won’t find me cringing or quarreling with someone for ditching a Ford engine in favor of a Chevy, or even for combining the two. But I hope you can see why I’d rather this three-row 1972 Ford F-350 be saved in its current form instead of hacked apart and swapped onto a newer frame.
That’s the truck’s fate unless someone buys it as-is on Facebook Marketplace. The Bumpside Ford is currently listed at $26,000—which isn’t cheap—but you aren’t likely to find another. I imagine that’s partially why the seller scooped it up in the first place, though he has other plans if no one takes it off his hands:
“I bought this truck with the intention to stretch the frame, [install an] 8-foot bed, and stick it on a 2015 chassis,” the ad reads. “Buy it before I change my mind and finish what I started.”
Sounds kind of… ominous. Of course, no one can fault a guy for doing what he wants with his own rig. But this feels like someone’s chance to restore it as a properly old-school machine. It just screams ’70s and I’m not sure that same charm would stick around if its body was swapped over to something newer.
There’s a 460-cubic-inch V8 under the hood and it’s mated to an automatic transmission. The ad claims it “stops, steers, and turns” which is more than some of us can say about our treasured projects. It’ll apparently take some work to be roadworthy, and if someone does buy it with intentions of keeping the current frame, they probably ought to make some rust repairs. It’s nothing obscene, especially for a 50-year-old truck, but this type of machine deserves to be cared for and shown off at every car show within a 100-mile radius.
The interior isn’t pristine, but fortunately, it doesn’t take much to reupholster bench seats. You could even cover them in vinyl if you wanted to save some money and still keep it period-correct. There’s no headliner to sag down on top of your ball cap, and the dash looks to be in good shape. Again, it isn’t perfect, but a little elbow grease would go a long way in cleaning it up.
While it currently has a flatbed on the back, an eight-foot pickup bed is included in the sale. I could go either way there, but I do like the dually rear-end. Toss on some polished wheels or at least paint the steel rollers it wears now and you have yourself a slick custom that not even your buddy’s uncle can say he had back in the day.
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