The Ford Pinto was two reactions in one vehicle. Originally, it was meant to be Ford’s answer to the Volkswagen Beetle, a little import-fighter that would send the German roly-poly thing that tweeted wherever it went back across the Atlantic. And, as luck would have it, right about the time production started, the first gas crisis kicked everybody dead square in the gut and suddenly, a small little hatchback made sense. But cars weren’t the only vehicles that got smacked by the fuel crisis, trucks caught it pretty good too. You weren’t going to get rid of V8 pickup trucks, but to have a little four-cylinder powered runaround with a bed and a load rating couldn’t hurt matters any. Ford and GM responded pretty quickly with the Courier (Mazda B-series) and Chevrolet LUV (Isuzu Faster), while Dodge simply sold a light D-100 with a slant-six that could both sip fuel and work hard. 
But Ford and GM also had another hand: coupe utilities. About this same time, GM had the El Camino/Sprint twins and Ford had the Ranchero. These were (ahem) mid-size utes, trucks based on the station wagons. Neither one was what we’d call “small” by any measure, though. But looking at this custom-built 1972 Ford Pinto we found on Craigslist, Ford could’ve had a better answer than the Courier. By cleanly chopping the cargo roof skin off of a Pinto station wagon and forming up the back of the cab and bed appropriately enough, the Pinto becomes a scaled-down Ranchero almost to perfection. We’re digging this little unit…the slot mags make this thing Day Two cool and the slight rake adds to the appeal. It makes me want to apologize for every Pinto joke I’ve ever cracked. It’s not going to haul a ton of paver stones home, but there is no reason why that bed can’t be useful.
Oh, did we mention the 302 HO and FMX automatic, the Lincoln-sourced 9-inch with a Trac-Lok, the four-wheel disc brake conversion, the 20-gallon (!) fuel cell, or any of the other neat bits? Yeah…they’re there.
well done I would take this over the mustang in the other thread in a hot second
My dad built one like this back in the early 80’s. I don’t remember it being this clean, but I was like 6 at the time.
Looks like it was made for this, pretty good. Inside the bed shots would be good to assess the real build quality
Ford should have given the builder a reward for giving them a small ute!