1981: Sizing down was about to pick up
Ford’s F-50, a domestically built replacement for the Courier, will be another truck with an American body and a Japanese heart. It will be available in the step-side model shown here and in two lengths of the fleet-side. As an economy measure, Ford may utilize some external and internal sheet metal parts form its new front drive Escort to cut tooling costs on the similar sized rear drive pickup. It is expected that the truck, being developed under the project name “Yuma”, will be available initially with either a 1.8 liter or 2.3-liter 4-cylinder gas engine mated to a 4, or 5-speed manual or 3-speed automatic.
Ford could not afford to supplement its lineup the way Chevy was doing it. Not only did Ford have less variety to offer the customer, it was as much as six months behind its competition in offering a small domestic pickup.
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