Ford's first Ranchero helped change everything

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Legend has it that a farmer’s wife in Victoria, Australia wrote a letter in 1932 to the Ford Motor Company’s Australian operations asking for “a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays.”

It was an interesting request, because 90 years ago the line between a truck or utility vehicle and a comfortable sedan was fairly rigid.

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The identity of the farmer’s wife remains unknown today; her letter may have been a marketing ploy on the part of Ford, or the story could represent the absolute truth, as stranger things have happened.

Whatever the case, the idea of creating a car with truck-like features – or a truck with car-like features – became something of a challenge for Ford Australia. Designer Lou Bandt (1910-1987) seized upon the opportunity to blur those lines. The result was a 1934 Ford that Ford Australia called the Ford Utility Coupe. It was basically a three-window Ford coupe with a truck bed incorporated into its rear.

Production of the Utility Coupe was modest throughout the 1930s.

Ford also built something called the Roadster Utility, which was a convertible version of the Utility Coupe. It, too, was available only in Australia.

General Motor’s Holden operations in Australia introduced its own version of the Utility Coupe in 1951, and sales for both the Ford and the Holden models started to climb. Australians found a certain pleasure in being able to drive around in a relatively well-appointed sedan-like vehicle that showcased the utility of a truck while offering the comfort, performance and handling of a car.

But that idea was mostly confined to Australia, until the concept was brought to the United States in late 1956. That’s when Ford introduced the American version of its long-standing Australia Utility Coupe.

The Ranchero, introduced for the 1957 model year, used precisely the same formula as Bandt had used over 20 years earlier, but it employed Ford’s full-size sedan platform, which was new for 1957.

Ranchero was based on the Ford Custom and Fairlane sedans, but used elements of the two-door Ford Ranch station wagon. The truck bed was reinforced and Ranchero had its own unique rear window and integrated cab and cargo box.

Ranchero was initially offered in two trim levels, offering accessories available in the Fairlane line of cars. They included stainless steel bodyside mouldings and two-tone paint. The “car” part of the Ranchero was essentially a Fairlane. The vehicle’s wheelbase was 118 inches and its length 202 inches.

Advertising from that era played up the new car/truck’s romanticized connection with the American Southwest. Ads showed the Ranchero being used in ranching and outdoor activities. Ford’s marketing people proclaimed Ranchero to be “More than a car! More than a truck!”

And curiously enough, Ranchero was “more than a truck.” It had a slightly higher cargo capacity than Ford’s half-ton F-Series pickup – about 50 pounds more.

But unlike the F-Series, which was built and marketed strictly for its utility and traditional heavy-duty role, Ranchero was not bound by such convention. Both the standard Fairlane Ranchero and the Custom Ranchero could be ordered with any engine then available within the Ford line of cars, and that included the Thunderbird Special, Ford’s new 352-cubic-inch V8 wonder.

Ranchero could also be ordered with seat belts and with a padded instrument panel.

Rob McKinlay owns a wonderful-looking 1957 Ranchero, which was on display at the 2017 edition of the Blenheim car show. His Ranchero has a two-tone paint scheme and appears to be an example of the more expensive Ranchero that was available from December 1956 until the end of that model year’s production run, in the summer of 1957.

Ranchero was built at just two Ford assembly plants – Oakville, Ont. and Lorain, Ohio.

The automotive press in 1957 was mostly enthusiastic about Ranchero, and was especially enamoured with its unique body style and obvious utility.

Ranchero continued on Ford’s full-size platform for 1958 and 1959. Changes were mostly cosmetic, as it continued to reflect the appearance of the full-size Fords for two model years.

So successful was Ranchero that GM introduced its all-new Chevrolet El Camino for 1959. GM completely adopted the Ford strategy and even borrowed El Camino’s name from the American Southwest.

Ford adjusted its strategy for Ranchero for 1960, and moved the concept to its mid-size line-up of cars. From 1960 to 1965 Ranchero would be based on the Falcon line of cars.

Ranchero continued through seven generations but was never again based on the full-size line of Ford cars, although the actual dimensions of Ranchero rivalled the original 1957 model in Ranchero’s final presentation, 1977 to 1979. For those final three model years, Ranchero was 220 inches long, about 18 inches longer than the original. And in those final three years, Ranchero offered three V8 choices – the 302, the 351 and the 400.

Interesting enough, the final American Rancheros were assembled at Ford’s Lorain plant in Ohio, just as they had been beginning in December 1956.

Meanwhile, Chevrolet continued with its El Camino model for almost a decade longer than Ford with Ranchero. But El Camino in its final years was based on a much-smaller platform and never enjoyed the appeal that both it and Ranchero basked in in their early years.

What killed El Camino in 1987 and Ranchero in 1979 was the same American phenomenon – pickup trucks. By the mid-1970s, both Ford and GM were building trucks that, in their most expensive and upscale form, offered interior styling and comfort that was comparable to a well-priced Ford LTD or Chevrolet Caprice.

Moreover, with the introduction of Chrysler’s all-new minivan or Magic Wagon in the fall of 1983, any practically that was originally attached to Ranchero or El Camino was rendered obsolete. Ford and GM quickly followed with their own mini vans.

Meanwhile, the truck’s transformation in our era is complete. It absolutely dominates the automotive landscape, so much so that traditional sedan sales have become sluggish by comparison.

Ford has rid its North American market of all Ford cars, with the exception of a small Focus and the iconic Mustang. GM has stopped production of half a dozen sedans.

Chrysler no longer assembles any cars in the United States. It has become a truck company. The cars that it does build are assembled at its plant in Brampton.

Whether that Australian farmer’s wife from 1932 is real or not, her plea for a vehicle that could be driven to church on Sunday and used for real-world practical purposes on Monday resonates more deeply today in the U.S. and Canada than it did 90 years ago.

And so Ford’s 1957 Ranchero is important in automotive and cultural history because it represents the first step in what would eventually become an enormous change in how we view and value transportation on this continent.