F-100 (Fifth generation (‘bumpside’))

The 1967 Redesign The fifth-generation F-Series arrived for 1967 on a chassis whose important changes had happened in 1965, so the news was above the frame rails. The cab was new: more glass, a wider body, roughly three additional inches of interior room. The styling signature was a single horizontal crease running from the leading edge of the front fender through the door and along the bedside to the tailgate, and enthusiasts named the generation after it. Bumpside now does more work in the classified advertisements than the model designation does. Ford and Chevrolet traded the American truck sales lead through the run — Ford in 1967, 1969 and 1970, Chevrolet in 1968, 1971 and 1972 — and that rivalry is why a 1972 pickup can be found with cloth seats and factory air.

Works Like a Truck, Rides Like a Car Twin I-Beam had been introduced on the 1965 trucks and carried through unchanged in principle. Two forged chrome-moly I-beams of roughly three feet sit offset and overlapping beneath the front of the chassis, each pivoting on the frame rail opposite its own wheel. Because the arc each wheel travels is long, camber change is smaller than a short-arm swing axle would give, though it is still there. Coil springs carry the load and a forged steel radius arm each side takes the braking and fore-and-aft loads. The ride was softer than a beam axle and Ford advertised the point relentlessly. The costs were real: near a degree of camber change per inch of travel, very little caster, awkward alignment, hard use of front tyres and shock absorbers, and a steering box with a reputation for weeping. Four-wheel-drive trucks did not get Twin I-Beam at all.

Sixes, FEs, and the 351 That Never Came The engine range was straightforward. The 240 and 300 cubic-inch overhead-valve sixes did the work; the 300 shares its 4.00 in bore with the 240 and adds stroke, and its 170 bhp gross at 3,800 rpm matters far less than its 283 lb-ft at 1,600 rpm. The V8 was the 352 FE for 1967, replaced for 1968 by the 360 and 390 FE, with the 302 Windsor joining from 1969. For 1972 the 390 is listed as two-wheel drive only. There was no 351 in a bumpside: the 1972 VIN engine codes run A, B, G, Y and H for the 240, 300, 302, 360 and 390 and nothing else. A 351 in one of these trucks is a swap, however early it was done.

From Custom Cab to Ranger XLT At launch the ladder ran Base, Custom Cab and Ranger, the Ranger bringing carpet, thicker foam and upholstered door inserts. Around the turn of the decade Ford reorganised it into Custom, Sport Custom, Ranger and Ranger XLT, and the XLT is the one that mattered: wood-tone dash and tailgate appliqué, pleated cloth and vinyl, full carpet, extra insulation, cargo lamp, aluminium mouldings. Sources disagree over whether it appeared for 1970 or 1971. Either way a pickup was being sold on comfort, and the King Ranch and Limited trucks of today descend from that decision.

Beds, Four-Wheel Drive and the Highboy Two beds ran throughout: the flush-sided Styleside, whose crease continues uninterrupted to the tailgate, and the Flareside, whose crease stops at the back of the cab and whose fenders stand proud of the box. The Styleside won decisively in period, so the Flareside is the scarcer truck now. Four-wheel drive grew steadily across the run, and on the F-250 it produced the truck later nicknamed the Highboy, whose divorced transfer case — a separate unit driven from the gearbox by a short shaft rather than bolted to it — needs enough front driveshaft clearance to raise the body well above a two-wheel-drive truck, a rear block levelling the stance.

Twin I-Beam wears in ways unfamiliar to anyone used to wishbones. The pivot bushings, radius arm bushings and steering joints are all consumables, and once they are tired the truck wanders. The geometry gives roughly a degree of camber change per inch of travel and very little caster, which produces poor straight-line stability on rough surfaces, heavy and uneven front tyre wear and short shock absorber life. Alignment is awkward, and a truck whose ride height has been altered without correcting the beams will eat tyres indefinitely. Steering boxes of the period are described as notably leak-prone.

Corrosion is the other structural theme, concentrated in the cab corners, floor pans, cab mounts, cowl sides, drip rails, lower fenders and doors, bed floor and outboard bed seams. Fifty-year-old wiring degrades and full harness replacement is normal in a serious rebuild. Brakes are drums at both ends with power assistance only an option, so a truck carrying a modern engine on standard brakes is under-braked by a wide margin. The engines are the least of it: the 300 six is an unstressed long-stroke design with a cast-iron block and head, and high mileages on it are unremarkable. Its faults are thirst, weight and an unwillingness to rev, not fragility.

Structure before anything else. Owners name the same places repeatedly: the cab corners where they drop away beside the frame rails, the floor pans and cab mounts, the battery tray, the cowl sides, the roof drip rail perimeter, lower front fenders and door bottoms, the bed floor, the seam down the outboard bedsides and the right inner fender apron. Rust there often signals worse underneath, and the frame is the first thing to put a light on.

The data plate settles most identity questions. The first three characters give series and drivetrain — F10 for a two-wheel-drive F-100, F11 for four-wheel drive, F25 and F26 for the F-250 — the fourth is the engine code, and the third digit of the body code separates Flareside from Styleside. A grille-centre Ranger badge is correct only for 1968 and 1969 and is easily transplanted; the interior trim code is the harder evidence. On a claimed Highboy the divorced transfer case and its visible front crossmember are the proof, not ride height.

On a modified truck the questions change, because an engine alone is not a build. The useful signal is whether the chassis was addressed — a purpose-built frame or an engineered front subframe rather than modern power loaded into unaltered original rails — and whether brakes, steering, wiring, fuel and cooling came up with it. The documented builds at this end of the market pair the engine with a replacement front end, rack-and-pinion steering, a rebuilt rear axle and large four-wheel discs.

All figures here are classic.com data read as of August 2026. For the fifth-generation F-100 the CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark stands at $33,619 against an average recorded sale of $35,646, trending upward, from 38 trucks listed. Across the generation the benchmark is $33,883; the F-250 sits at $33,961 on a $32,165 average. Beneath those averages the spread is enormous. The lowest F-100 sale classic.com records is $2,772 for a 1972 Explorer in September 2025, and an $800 1972 F-350 changed hands the same month. The highest completed sale it records for the generation is $194,995 for a 1972 F-100 Custom at Lithia Springs, Georgia on 6 August 2026. Larger numbers exist only as asking prices: a 1971 F-100 by Velocity Restorations listed at $309,900 in January 2026, and a 1972 F-250 by the same shop at $364,900 with 500 miles showing — builds offered, not sales recorded. The 1972 F-100 results give the shape of the middle as of August 2026: $61,000 for a modified truck in July, $27,500 for an original Sport Custom in June, $10,500 for an original Ranger, $7,400 for a modified Custom in August. Modification moves a truck in either direction; a correct, unmodified 1969 F-250 Highboy made $45,900 on 21 August 2026.