What does it take to shock the guys behind the keyboard here at BangShift? Find something we have never seen before and would have never, ever thought of, even at our most intoxicated moments, and show us that it not only exists, but that it is obtainable and you’re done…you will leave our mouths agape in astonishment…or horror…or maybe both. Such was the case when Brian Wetzel sent us the Craigslist link to what started out as a 1986 Ford Ranger:

“I have a 1986 ford ranger custom pickup that was built for a sema show in the late 80’s. It’s a 86 ranger with a lincoln front nose and tail section with lincoln interior it was built by one hell of a car builder because it looks like it came from the factory; it was built in Illinois .My dad bought it years ago to drive in the parades in . Then he parked it in his shop with his other classic cars . I’m selling for $8500.00 or i will trade for another old classic car would love to have a large nice travel trailer hopefully with slide outs send be a picture’s of your old classic or travel trailer .the truck has not ran in years but it will be running before it leaves my shop. I DON’T NEED HELP SELLING SO PLEASE STOP CALLING IF IT DON’T SELL I WILL KEEP IT.”

If the truck is a legit SEMA build, there’s some points for it, but $85oo seems closer to the truck’s original sale price pre-mods, and that was before a Lincoln Mark V was cut up for bodywork. Where do we stand on the subject? Read on…

McTaggart: When Ford downsized cars across the board for 1980, all of their models suffered because unlike General Motors, Ford simply scaled down the previous design to fit onto a smaller car. Chrysler made the same mistake in 1962 and the results were just about the same: the cars looked wrong from just about any angle. From the nose, I start to get the sensation of what a Lincoln version of the Mustang II would have looked like. I know the Lincoln radiator grille was the focus, but something just doesn’t look right here. At least the builder scaled down the headlight doors. Out back, the Mark V tail almost works, right up until you see just how huge the Continental bump is compared to the rest of the truck. For $8500, even if there was a 351 under the hood and photographs proving that the truck was at SEMA, I’m not sure I’d go for it.

Lohnes: I admire McTaggart for his thoughtful and well reasoned response above. Why? Basically because this thing has made be swallow my last two meals multiple times since I first saw the photos about three minutes ago. The original Lincoln Blackwood pickup was such a sales embarrassment that they cancelled the thing in record time after totally dismal sales. If Lincoln had released something like this back in the 1980s, it would have saved them the trouble of the Blackwood because they would have sold none of them. The craftsmanship to tie all this together is amazing but it is also a sign that someone is mentally ill to have conceived it in the first place.

I don’t want to see it crushed… I just don’t want to see it.