Clean, low-mileage classic cars come up from time to time. People love them and sell them for a bunch of money, then we all move on. When clean, low-mileage pickup trucks come up for sale, the car world stops. It is a rare thing, indeed, to find a workhorse that ain’t been worked. That’s what makes the 1979 Ford F-350 dump truck so special. It’s not just a truck; it’s a dump truck with only 1,584 miles. How can you drive a dump truck for even that long without beating it up? Was this someone’s weekend dump truck? 

What is the most expensive 90s Ford pickup truck? 

As far as factory Ford pickup trucks, the high water mark was a 1996 Ford F-250 XLT SuperCab 7.5L 4×4 that sold on Bring-A-Trailer for a whopping $59,280. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a lot of money for an old truck, but this dump truck made the F-250 look normal. Now the new most expensive 90s Ford pickup truck is this F-350 dump truck that just sold for $84,800.  It was listed last month, and many people thought the price was crazy, but it actually sold.

How did this dump truck stay so clean all this time? 

The Drive got the scoop on this magical truck from Anthony Clavenna, owner of Gateway Car Connection and seller of the work vehicle. 

“Basically, the truck was ordered by a guy that owned a Ford franchise—he owned a large Ford store,” Clavenna explained. “He ordered it and hauled one load of gravel in 1999, so that’s the only thing that’s ever been in the bed.”

As you might have noticed (I’m looking at you, dump truck nerds), the original wheels were replaced, but the truck came with them beautifully preserved, wrapped in plastic. 

“He did that one load of gravel, but he would drive it into his Ford store periodically and have it serviced,” Clavenna continued. “It wasn’t a truck that sat around even though it didn’t get a ton of miles put on it. It did drive periodically.” 

This Truck is next-level clean

The Drive reports that the truck had its original certificate of origin until 2020 when it was first titled. The seller says the truck came from New York but was stored in a climate-controlled garage at all times, well, when it wasn’t on the road. He goes on to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find as much as a water spot on the underside. This truck is clean, clean. 

Are ‘90s trucks with the crazy asking prices? 

This truck is clearly very amazing, but it’s still a dump truck. I understand its condition makes it rare, but the bubonic plague is rare. Does that mean I want to pay $84,800 to get it? I’m not saying this truck isn’t worth the price; I’m just suggesting that just because something is rare doesn’t mean it should be inherently expensive. 

I’m not sure what to do with this part of the collector car world. At the end of the day, this is a dump truck. It’s meant to do work. Now that it’s nearly a six-figure car, it will likely never be used the way it was intended. At least with vintage low-mileage sports cars or something, they were meant to be driven, and their design admired. This is not so for construction equipment. I don’t know. This F-350 is sweet, but is it $84,800 sweet? I just don’t know that I see it.