mod@tech

While the sundown stripes don’t exactly change the look of this 1984 Ford Ranger consigned to the Hemmings Auctions, they sure do a great job of breaking up what would otherwise be a billboard of blank beige on either side. Instead, what really changes the look and feel of the compact pickup—aside from the obvious lift and modern aftermarket wheels—is the tip-to-tail restoration. This may be the first Ranger we’ve seen in years with an interior that’s not ripped and cracked or with an engine bay that’s had the slightest amount of detailing. It’s clean, but at the same time, it’s not so precious that you wouldn’t want to hop in and drive it around town. From the seller’s description:

This 1984 Ford Ranger 4×4 Styleside Pickup was formerly owned by NASCAR champion, Ricky Craven, according to the selling dealer. The truck has been partially restored in Light Desert Tan with eye-catching vinyl sundown-stripe graphics. The seller says this Ranger is a “rock solid” Southern (Virginia and Tennessee residencies) truck that can be driven almost anywhere off-road or on the highway (the seller has had the truck on the highway at 70 mph with no issues).

The engine is a 2.8-liter OHV V6, which Ford rated at 115 horsepower and 150 lb-ft of torque when new. It’s backed by a three-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive with a manual transfer case and auto-locking front hubs, according to the seller. The seller says the engine is original and “runs strong with no issues.” He says it starts quickly after two gas pedal pumps, with no smoking and no leaks. The automatic transmission shifts smoothly with no issues, per the seller. Per the seller, the truck has a new exhaust.

The seller says this Ford Ranger has a solid, “rust-free Southern body” with “excellent” condition Light Desert Tan paint that he feels is “very fresh,” with no dents, chips, or blemishes. The glass and seals are rated “excellent” by the seller. All the lights work. The custom vinyl sundown-stripe graphics were designed by the seller but they are reminiscent of factory graphics of this period. The truck has a spray-in bed liner and a LoPro vinyl tonneau cover. Both bumpers were painted black and the truck has black Westin side nerf bars/step bars.

The Desert Tan vinyl upholstery is newer and restored to original condition, according to the seller. The carpet is new but there is a small area by the shifter that was improperly cut. The headliner is “excellent” and all the interior trim has been “beautifully restored,” per the seller. The gauges and stereo all work as do the heater and air conditioning. The seller reports a new fuel gauge was installed.

The suspension was mildly lifted and the seller says he was impressed by how nice the ride is with this lift kit. He doesn’t have anything bad to say about the quality of the components. This truck has its factory twin I-beam front suspension and parallel rear leaf springs, with new shocks and new springs. There is no play in the power steering and the seller says the truck tracks nicely on the highway. The power front disc, rear drum brakes are great and stop as they should, per the seller. The “basically brand new” X-D alloy wheels are teamed with 245/70R17 Mastercraft Courser AXT2 radial tires that show 2021 date codes and have “95 percent remaining tread,” in the seller’s opinion. He states that an alignment was performed in October 2022.

See more Fords for sale on Hemmings.com.

Date: June 1988

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Source: via Hennepin County Library Digital Collections

What do you see here?

We all have a type when it comes to cars. Some people narrow their focus down to one particular generation of one particular model. Others are happy staying within a certain brand. Some devote themselves to trucks, some to muscle cars. Whatever ones fancy, it’s undoubtedly easier to specialize: You get to know the cars inside and out, their weak points, the community that builds up around them. Sometimes the benefits extend further; for instance, if you’re known as the AMC guy in town, people start telling you where the AMCs are all hidden or even start offering you their AMC cars and AMC parts.

But that’s not to say we’re all entirely faithful to our type, especially when it comes to what cars we’d park in our fantasy garages. We’re all guilty of a little wandering eye sometimes, even if what catches our eye makes zero sense compared to those vehicles that we typically focus on.

The first step, then, is to identify your type. As noted recently, my type seems to be hopeless old trucks and anything requiring knuckle-busting or the long-term occupation of at least one bay of my garage. Or, at the very least, anything I can swing on an auto writer’s budget. The fewer options or features or creature comforts, the better. My type has absolutely nothing to do with anything one could describe as luxury or exotic. It’s not that I’m prejudiced against vehicles that come from outside North America—I think a Miata or a Mini or a VW Type 2 or even a Fiat 126 (or any of its derivatives) would fit comfortably in my type—but I don’t ever see myself owning something for which an oil change costs more than an entire reliable daily driver.

And yet the world comes to a complete halt every time I see a first-generation Bentley Continental GT. Doesn’t matter if it’s in person or scrolling through the Hemmings.com classifieds (where I came across the listing for the 2005 Bentley Continental GT from which I nabbed the photos here) or browsing show coverage, I always linger over it and allow those thoughts of “I could see myself in this” to flash across my mind—thoughts that no Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, Aston-Martin, Mercedes-Benz, etc. inspires for me. I’ve never driven one, let alone sat in one. I’m not a superfan of them; to be frank, I had to look up a few specifications on the cars before starting this story. But they get my blood pumping nonetheless.

Admittedly, it’s the styling that grabs me. The Dirk van Braeckel design has excellent—possibly perfect—proportions with just the right amount of surfacing and those Chrysler d’Elegance/Karmann Ghia haunches and a restrained amount of ornamentation. The design is sporty, it’s elegant, it’s imposing, it doesn’t apologize for itself. There’s something about successive generations with their more upright grilles, their variations-on-the-theme headlamps, and their additional vents and character lines that seems less pure to me.

I’ve taken the dreaming so far as to occasionally see what Continental GTs are selling for on Hemmings.com. Not as much as I’d expect, especially for the earliest of the first-generation non-Mulliner cars, but still securely in fantasy territory. And besides, who’d service one for me out here in the hills and hollows of southwestern Vermont?

I can’t be the only one who has such a wandering eye. So tell us in the comments below what’s your automotive type, what are the cars that you admire regardless, and why?

It hardly seems possible, but another lap around the sun is about to be completed. As I’m sure is the case with other like-minded enthusiasts, my celestial New Year is not marked by a solstice or equinox event, but rather the opening day of the AACA Eastern Fall Meet in Hershey, Pennsylvania. For those new to the hobby, the pilgrimage to Chocolate Town for old vehicles, parts, and memorabilia is a decades-long tradition, and I’ve been an eager participant since 1997, save but one due to the pandemic.

This year’s multifaceted show, the second since “Tumultuous ’20,” could be considered a rebirth, much like solstices to our ancestors, after it was announced just over 12 months ago that the Hershey Meet dates shifted by one day. It may not look like much, but it was an epic BANG! heard by the community. As we’ve documented previously, vendor setup, which had traditionally occurred on Tuesday, is now (and for the foreseeable future) scheduled for Monday. The event’s official opening day is now Tuesday instead of Wednesday, and so on, culminating with the long-revered car show on Friday, rather than Saturday.

We can still see the disbelief in some eyes as they stared at wooden nickels embossed with four years of future dates. Some tried to find words of encouragement; others found solace in disgruntled mumbling. Common was the question of, “What will this do to attendance?” While it has yet to be seen if the forced move is good, bad, or otherwise, it’s important to remember two things: Hershey wasn’t cast into a realm of distant memories, and that changes are inevitable. Though the news was perhaps shocking initially, the schedule alterations could harbor an as-yet-unseen benefit. We can relate to some degree.

Take this magazine, for instance. Like the automobiles it celebrates, HCC has evolved since the first issue landed on newsstands and in mailboxes in October 2004. While some features ran their course, others were added, none more recent than the previously untold stories from fellow enthusiasts through I Was There and Reminiscing. Both were met with resounding interest and contributions, though as a reader recently pointed out, it seemed as though each were destined to slowly disappear. As noted, such is not the case. A fresh batch of I Was There stories from the assembly lines, repair shops, and service stations have begun to arrive at our Bennington, Vermont, office, as have fond memories of first rides, long cross-country treks, and the like. All make for excellent Reminiscing reading.

We know there are more tales yet to be told amongst our readers, and we’re encouraging you to keep sending in those automotive-related adventures of yore in detail, preferably accompanied by large-format digital or print-worthy photographs. Towed a travel trailer to Yosemite behind a Suburban? Hitched a Chris Craft to the back of the family sedan? Forced to change engines mid-trip, just to get back home? Let us know—I’m pleased to say that we’re going to be rededicating space within these covers shortly.

The notion of recommitting to those features in earnest had our restless minds pondering other topics of consideration. One was the fact that, inadvertently, the pandemic’s “social distance” conditions seemed to have a positive side effect on many hobbyists. The lack of social obligations left many enthusiasts with more free time to get back into the garage and start a new restoration project, revive a sleeping classic, or finish a project that had lingered in limbo. We’re just starting to see some of those fresh restorations and mechanical revivals emerge, and we bet many more are still in progress. This rediscovered pride and satisfaction of rekindling a neglected relationship with vintage vehicles is stronger than ever.

To celebrate, we’re launching a new feature called Garage Time, an homage to the In Our/Your Garage from our Hemmings Sports and Exotic past. If you’re like us, the to-do list in your palace of vehicular progress still has some things to be checked off. Drop us a line —again, with large-format digital or print-worthy photographs —showing and telling us what you’ve been doing, and what you have planned, with your vintage steed. You won’t be alone, as we’ll be providing updates on both our current home and planned in-office projects.

Stories of yore and recent garage time can be sent to Hemmings Motor News, c/o Matthew Litwin, 222 Main Street, Bennington, Vermont 05201, or by email at mlitwin@hemmings.com. Perhaps our collective tales will spur a new member of this vast hobby to take a deeper dive in vintage vehicle fun, too.

With a room full of cars all begging for your interest, It’s hard not to fall in love once or twice as you stroll across the show floor. This week’s trip to Las Vegas, for the annual Mecum Auctions extravaganza in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall, found me in a nostalgic mood: Most of the cars I found that moved me most this time out largely have a connection to my own past, however indirect. That’s ok. I’m not the nostalgic sort, but cars do that to us: They remind of us other times and places, better or otherwise.

T262, 1989 Nissan Pao

It was a brilliant concept: take an existing chassis and build a car that’s more individualistic—and whimsically retro—than what it’s based on. (Car companies do it all the time: witness the new Bronco, on a Ranger chassis, and the Bronco Sport, whose bones are shared with the Escape.) In Japan, in the ‘80s, the dull Micra subcompact (smaller than our Sentra, but still too big to be kei-class) was re-styled to become the Pao–one of four specially retro-styled models to come out of the Pike factory in Japan. (The other three, trivia fans? The 1987 Be-1, the 1989 S-Cargo, and the 1991 Figaro.) We’ve already gone over whether these were the spark that set off the whole retro-styled craze of the last 30-odd years, encompassing everything from the New Beetle to the Chrysler PT Cruiser to the ’02 Thunderbird to the Chevy SSR. The Pao’s corrugated lines, the flip-up rear quarter windows, the sliding sunroof, the piepans-on-black-steelies look, even the color—all speak to an earlier time, while the interior offered modern levels of convenience and comfort. Better still, this particular 1989 Nissan Pao wasn’t so minty that you’d be afraid to take it out for an amusing, slow cruise. Six grand bid (at press time) is probably what it cost to procure it and ship it to the States on its clean Minnesota title.

Lot F62, 1982 Ford Mustang GT

Once upon a time, when I was younger and more beautiful, one of my first editorial tasks was to help fill a 300-page monthly magazine with words about, and pictures of 5.0-liter Ford Mustangs. Oh, most of them were of the ’87-and-up fuel-injected variety, but with decades of wisdom (?) behind me, I better understand the seismic shift that happened when Ford brought back the five-liter Windsor V-8 to its Mustang, slapped a GT badge on its rump and a pair of 5.0 badges on its front fenders, and sent it out hunting Camaros. Today a four-cylinder Mustang has double-plus the amount of power that a stock ’82 GT does, but in its day, a new GT was a big step toward reclaiming Mustang’s performance heritage. This 1982 Ford Mustang GT, showing barely 20,000 miles on its odometer and sporting aftermarket Michelin TRX-style wheels that no longer require weirdo metric-sized rubber, feels like an important milestone. Today’s V-8 Mustangs don’t say 302 on the front fenders—they say 5.0. Cars like this are the reason why.

Lot T79, 1977 Datsun 620 pickup

The rows at Mecum were filled with aggressive, angry, testosterone-filled (and -fueled) trucks and SUVs—painted an array of jarring combinations, jacked to the sky, and showing you their axles and increasingly outrageous footwear with no modesty whatsoever. And somehow, among them, from across a crowded conga line of cars waiting their turn over the transom, this little honey of a Datsun pickup batted its eyelashes at me. It’s all been redone—paint, interior, exhaust, tires, and just about every mechanical system short of the engine block appears to have been gone through and refurbished. It sold as I watched for $15,400 including the house’s piece; given the list of items done to it (long enough to nearly fill that reporter’s-notebook-sized dance card that gets plastered to the windshield), surely that much was invested in its refurbishment?

Lot S90, 1963 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible

Every auction-related trip to Vegas I take, I seem to want to find a car in which to dodge the absurd quantities of traffic, lights, and construction and just go for a lazy, style-filled cruise—a car that would prove a salve from the stupidity happening outside of my steel-and-glass cocoon. This time out, the ride to fit that particular bill is this three-hectare plot of Cadillac ragtop: power everything (steering/brakes/windows/locks/seat/top), smooth silver paint that offends me less here than it does on just about any modern SUV, and the sheer acreage of the thing lets everyone else in traffic that you’ve arrived, even if you’re still driving.

Lot F122, 1971 Ford Torino convertible

Occasionally, I miss the thuggish brutality of my old Mercury Montego, the one I got to build up in the ‘90s and early ‘00s—with its Cleveland power and steamroller tires. Occasionally, I miss the opportunity to put the roof down like I could in my ’64 Dart GT, the car that would replace it in my fleet; winters here in the Southwest are prime convertible time. This 1971 Ford Torino convertible is essentially both cars rolled into one: unrestored, with two-barrel Cleveland power under the hood and a top that folds down, the windshield banner proclaims that it’s one of 34 built—though how those numbers break down is unclear. It’s not even a GT, but that wouldn’t bother me. Neither does the mild road rash on the leading edge of the hood.

Now and again, your car’s tires lose air. Just a pound or two here and there. If you have an air compressor in your garage, it’s probably heavy and needs plugging in; if you don’t, you’ll need a pocket full of quarters and a nearby gas station, assuming your tires aren’t so flat that they’ll get damaged if you run on them.

Not long ago, when I had some tires to inflate, a friend pressed this little gizmo into my hand: Fix Manufacturing’s Eflator. Literally, it was a gift: It came with neither box nor directions, but was intuitively simple to operate despite this. Not much larger than a cellphone, resembling a walkie-talkie, weighing in at around one pound, and operating on a rechargeable 2000mAh battery, it happily inflated the pneumatic tires on my deflated hand truck in about 38 seconds. A successful test. Not long after, I tasked it with inflating the four flat tires on my long-suffering Model A Ford, just enough to be able to roll it down the driveway for its tow.

Photo by Jeff Koch

Just screw the cap onto the Schrader valve until the join stops hissing, switch it on, and stand back. I pressed the M button (for Manual) on the front of the pump, and let it do its work; you can also set it for a given pressure. The eflator was designed for bicycles and motorcycles, but it worked great on my A. All four of my Model A’s 19-inch Allstate tires were pumped up to 15 pounds, according to the large, clear digital readout on its face, with it taking less than five minutes per tire to get there. Once that ancient, cracked rubber was sufficiently inflated, I rolled the A down my mother-in-law’s driveway to await its tow, and the pump itself slipped back into the glove box in my van. There is a rubber sheath covering the connection between the pump and the hose; do not remove this, as the join between pump and hose gets really hot. The pump itself remains cool enough to touch during operation.

Photo by Jeff Koch

Where the eflator failed was when I tasked it with something it was not designed to do: entirely inflate a car tire. When the Vice Grip Garage charity-auction Silverado had a flat, oversized off-road tire after months of sitting in a Phoenix storage unit, I thought I’d give it a shot. Without recharging after my hand truck or the four flat A rubber bands, we made it to about seven and a half pounds of pressure—enough to get it out of the storage unit and onto the waiting transporter—before the batteries simply gave out. So, even in its failure, the unit still succeeded. Had I been so equipped, I could have recharged the unit via its USB-C port. The money spent on it could pay itself back quickly in an emergency, and it will live in most glove boxes or consoles unobtrusively. It comes with a one-year warranty and a nylon carry bag.

Fix Manufacturing sells the Deflator directly from its site for $99.95. We found similar battery-powered tire inflators selling on Amazon in the $40 to $50 range.

[I Love This Tool reviews are not sponsored and are the result of Hemmings Motor News’s staffer’s hands-on experience with tools they purchased themselves. Hemmings Motor News may earn commissions from referrals to products listed on Amazon.com.]