1981 Ford Fairmont Durango Pickup Up For Auction

As many Blue Oval fans are already well aware, Ford dabbled in the area of car-based pickups for some time via the Ranchero (among others, such as the Falcon ‘ute), which hung around for more than 20 years until it was discontinued following the 1979 model year. Ford designer Dick Nesbitt drew up a pickup version of the Fairmont around that same time, which was ultimately rejected by the automaker – though it was at least intrigued enough by the idea to send it over to a custom-car builder based in Gardena, California, dubbed National Coach. That entity wound up bringing the Ford Fairmont Durango pickup, as it’s known, to life, and now, one of them is up for auction.

This 1981 Ford Fairmont Durango pickup is currently listed for sale over at Bring a Trailer after spending time in California and Canada. It’s in pretty stellar condition at the moment following a repaint in blue and white two-tone, coupled with recently polished bumpers and trim. To create the Ford Fairmont Durango pickup, National Coach took a Futura coupe body and cut the roof behind the B-pillars, removed the rear seat and trunk areas, and installed a fiberglass bed.

Inside, one will find an equally clean interior with Medium Wedgewood Blue vinyl seats sporting plaid cloth accents, along with amenities such as air conditioning, cruise control, a Motorola push-button AM/FM stereo, and crank windows – not to mention a full-sized spare tire mounted behind the seats. It’s powered by the naturally-aspirated Ford 3.3L inline-six cylinder engine sending power to the rear wheels via a three-speed automatic transmission.

If nothing else, this Ford Fairmont Durango is notable given the fact that we rarely see one in any kind of condition, and it’s unclear how many were built in total, though many believe it’s fewer than 350. It certainly can’t be too many, as it’s been several years since we last saw a Fairmont Durango surface for sale – 2017, in fact.