Photo: eBay User: sonnyw92
We get a lot of old-timers in the automotive space bemoaning how pickup trucks used to be different breeds moons ago. If you're on the younger side, it might be easy to pass off that kind of rhetoric as another "okay, boomer" moment. But when you take a look at this 1995 Ford F-350 XLT dually with a 460-cubic-inch (7.5-L) V8 and a five-speed manual transmission, you start to understand what everyone's elders are talking about. You couldn't find a modern truck with this kind of layout if you prayed at the altar of Cummins, Duramax, and Powerstroke.
Indeed, the Ford F-Series was a brand in the midst of profound change. Change which was brought on by rapidly advancing philosophies that were starting to make American trucks built previously look archaic and frankly spartan. But in the mid-90s, when American pickups began their slow descent into luxury items, Ford still remembered the low-end, entry-level pickup truck buyers who made the F-Series a household name. With a cloth bench seat, five-on-the-floor manual transmission, and its most pressing luxury component being just a chromed front grille, this is a kind of truck so unique to the mid-90s that it might as well be a Pearl Jam album.
There's something quintessentially "90s" about this truck's deep-dish style aluminum wheel covers, too. It's a classic touch that does wonders to separate this truck stylistically from the boxy, square-body Ford trucks of the 70s and 80s but also from the sleek, contemporary look of newer Ford trucks. That said, there are F-Series trucks 20 years older than this example, not in nearly as nice a condition as the one before us. With its cherry paint with white pinstriping on either side shining like it's factory new, there are layers upon layers of classic truck appeal that act like a warrior's call for those into that kind of thing.
But, of course, no classic truck is complete without a big engine, and that's where the Ford 460 big block under the hood here doesn't disappoint. As a part of the Ford 385 engine family built since 1968, this 1995 Ford truck is one of the final appearances of this colossus of an engine from the factory. After all those years under the hood of various Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury luxo-barges, finishing out its production run servicing heavy-duty trucks just somehow makes sense.
With just 64,500 miles shown on the odometer, there are legitimately trucks built in 2023 that have clocked more mileage in the last 12 months than this truck has in almost 30 years. It's the reason why if the new owner snags it for anything less than $20,000, we can rightfully say they stole the thing.
There's something quintessentially "90s" about this truck's deep-dish style aluminum wheel covers, too. It's a classic touch that does wonders to separate this truck stylistically from the boxy, square-body Ford trucks of the 70s and 80s but also from the sleek, contemporary look of newer Ford trucks. That said, there are F-Series trucks 20 years older than this example, not in nearly as nice a condition as the one before us. With its cherry paint with white pinstriping on either side shining like it's factory new, there are layers upon layers of classic truck appeal that act like a warrior's call for those into that kind of thing.
But, of course, no classic truck is complete without a big engine, and that's where the Ford 460 big block under the hood here doesn't disappoint. As a part of the Ford 385 engine family built since 1968, this 1995 Ford truck is one of the final appearances of this colossus of an engine from the factory. After all those years under the hood of various Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury luxo-barges, finishing out its production run servicing heavy-duty trucks just somehow makes sense.
With just 64,500 miles shown on the odometer, there are legitimately trucks built in 2023 that have clocked more mileage in the last 12 months than this truck has in almost 30 years. It's the reason why if the new owner snags it for anything less than $20,000, we can rightfully say they stole the thing.
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