The story of how the Dodge managed to turn the D-series pickup into some of the most exciting performance products of the late 1970s is well known: the company found a loophole that allowed trucks to avoid meeting the same smog criteria as passenger cars, and went nuts with it. Trucks like the 360-powered Lil’ Red Express, the 440-powered Midnite Express, and the Warlock were a welcome relief not only from Chrysler’s otherwise miserable offerings, but offerings in general.
But what about Ford? 1979 was all about the Fox Mustang. While the Fairmont beat it to market, the Fox chassis was completely for the Mustang, with every other car secondary. While the Mustang II had actually been pretty successful as a model, by the end of it’s run sales had fallen off of a cliff and no matter how many times the word “Cobra” was re-hashed and laid out in tape stripes, it was going to take something new and fresh to revitalize the nameplate…and the 1979 Mustang delivered, no doubt. Magazines went nuts with praise, happy to see the “mini-Mark” Mustang II out for the incoming Fox. Getting nominated as the Indy Pace Car for the 1979 race certainly didn’t hurt things, and Ford celebrated: with over ten thousand Pace Car Mustangs, and 4,225 Indy Pace Trucks.
The Pace Trucks could be optioned in two-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive, from F-100 through F-350, shortbed or longbed. You were stuck with the silver, orange and black paint job and interior trimming, the Ranger package, an under-bed spare tire, and an auxiliary fuel tank. At least you got to choose whether or not the Pace Truck stripes made it onto the truck or not…they were shipped in the cab to dealerships. This little number here is probably the most stout Ford you could buy for 1979 (sorry to the Mustang Cobra fans), a two-wheel-drive 460-powered F-150. When was the last time you ever saw one of these?
eBay Link: 1979 Ford F-150 Ranger Indy Pace Truck
Never seen one. They must have been so good Ford kept them secret. I know one thing, they never showed up at the Car & Driver shootouts where they’d put the LRE trucks up against TransAm’s and whatever other “hot” offerings of the era had to offer. So my thought is; it had to be a dog…or Ford built them, but just really didn’t want to sell them. Yeah, right.
I’ve driven both the Pace Pickup and Pace Mustang (hair-dryered 2.3 or carb 302) Both 1979 Ford offerings were superior to GM’s rusty pickups…. and
their Camaros…. with their 450-pound doors.
The 302 Mustang could be pretty quick and durable with a C-4 auto if you
geared other than the 2.47 ratio that was offered.
As with almost ALL Pace-Car vehicles, the worst problems were their gaudiness
and the associated quick failure of using LUNCH-PAIL STICKERS instead of
actual paint.
There’s one of these in my town in Massachusetts and is a daily driver. 2wd long bed still in decent shape.
Nice article on a long forgotten line of pickups. I run the registry on the 79 Indy trucks. You can go to http://www.indytruck.net and read all about them if you like. There were actually almost 6000 of these trucks built. I’ve owned 6 of them over the years and I currently own 3, one of which is a daily driver.
We even have some of the uber rare dealer showroom posters that measured 4 feet by 6 feet.
I’ll reach out to the owner and see if it’s already in our registry.
Thanks again, Dean Bitner
479-263-3326