1979 Ford Ranchero GT: the last year

This record's own dek describes 1979 as the Ranchero's last year, in which a secondary source reports 12,159 GTs among 25,010 sold, a lineage this record states plainly that no primary Ford record read here confirms. Wikipedia records that Ranchero production ended in 1979, with a commemorative 1979 1/2 model among the choices, but this record's own overview repeats that no sourced GT production or configuration detail beyond that single lineage was found in this research pass.^1,2

This record's own production notes describe an internal consistency across its three separately reported series figures: the 25,010-car total equals their exact sum, 12,159 for the GT, 12,093 for the Ranchero 500 and 758 for the Squire, so this record treats the total and the three-way split as one coherent lineage even though none of it traces to a named factory record. The GT and total rows both come from secondary web articles with no stated origin of their own, and this record's own notes name the Standard Catalog of American Light-Duty Trucks, or an actual Ford production report, as what would be needed to close that gap.¹

The Squire figure specifically is logged as disputed in this record's own conflicts section: 758 from one enthusiast article against 759 from a second, unsourced site, and this record's own treatment explains its choice directly, that 758 is the figure that closes the 25,010 total exactly, while 759 would leave the sum one car short. This record keeps the 759 figure attributed in its conflicts section rather than discarding it outright, since neither site's underlying source could be confirmed and the one-car gap itself is too small to resolve without an actual factory document.³

This record's own paint section carries a documented methodological note distinct from other years: the twenty-nine colors listed come from a DuPont 1979 Ford Motor Company exterior refinish chart that, unlike earlier years' charts, prints which of Ford, Mercury and Thunderbird actually used each color, so only colors keyed "F" for Ford are recorded here, excluding one Thunderbird-only color, Chamois Metallic, and one Mercury-only color, Medium Pine Metallic, on that basis. A separate Lincoln exterior-color section and a further Ford/Lincoln interior and striping section on the same chart set are both excluded as inapplicable to Ranchero exterior paint, and this record states explicitly that handwritten annotations visible on the scanned chart pages, apparent later-owner notes about mixing formulas, are not part of the printed chart and were not used.⁴

This record's price section carries the same editorial note found elsewhere in this record: a J.D. Power-sourced figure was removed as of September 24, 2026, since those live valuation pages cannot be independently verified, and no replacement source this record can stand behind has yet been found. Beyond production, the disputed Squire figure and the paint list, this record's engines, transmissions, options, interiors, specifications, performance and identification sections are all empty for 1979, the Ranchero's final model year.³

Two unpublished leads repeat the production figures already given above. A ranchero.us forum post gives the identical 12,159 GT and 12,093 Ranchero 500 figures, naming no source beyond the usual attribution to the Standard Catalog. A French photo site, trombinoscar.com, repeats the same GT and 500 figures with its own prices attached, $6,289 and $5,866 respectively, alongside the 759-car Squire figure at $6,014 matching the disputed alternative already logged in this record's conflicts section, though this record adopts none of these uncited prices into its own price section.¹