1978 Ford F250 – Craig J.

As a 12 year old I watched as my next door neighbor drove home his new 1978 two-tone brown and tan XLT 250 2wd, and have had a soft spot for this truck line ever since. A couple of years ago I had the green light from my wife to look for a similar truck – and just lost out by a couple of hours on an advertised mint garaged 78 Explorer with low mileage. More looking found this high option truck, that had the same owner for the first 35 years of its life. The truck was special ordered with virtually every option available – a true “fully loaded” example. Options included: 460 motor, automatic transmission, camper special, tool storage box, tilt, cruise and about 15 other options (missing only perhaps air conditioning, posi-trac and roof lights) It even came with a factory box canopy. The truck was well taken care of, with the factory plastic still on the mint Lariat seats with the relatively rare green interior. This rare Silver and Jade Green exterior was actually not what the customer ordered (a factory mistake…) – and the dealership offered to paint it to whatever he wanted. After driving it around a while he decided that he really liked the combination and decided to keep it as is. Only 21 F-250s that year had this paint combination and only 2 of the 4,765 Lariats 250’s had this paint code. The only “bad” thing done was the addition of aftermarket sunroof and side mirrors by the first owner… sunroof will stay, but mirror replacement with proper (non-camper special) D-loop mirrors are planned soon. It appears also that the lowest level of rocker panel chrome was added too – but you never know about what the factory floor was doing on any particular day – it too could just be factory installed too?… . I have enjoyed delicately upgrading and restoring the truck with many orders of “smalls” from LMC to make everything right. Always stopped by “old guys” who had them new back in the day.[lmc_story_gallery]