he fullsized Ford Ranchero was originally built in 1957 and continued through 1959. It was based on a two-door station wagon and had the full complement of engines and transmissions typical of passengers of that era. From 1960-65, it was reclassified as a “compact” and then from 1966-79 it was reclassified again as a “midsize” utility vehicle. (It prompted Chevrolet to build the El Camino in 1959 to compete with the Ranchero.) The 1957 Ranchero seems to be the most popular of the first three years and the only one with a single headlight. We are beginning to see more of the Rancheros (and El Caminos) at rodding events.

We spoke with Brian Limberg of Tin Man’s Garage (TMG) to ask what his customer wanted and what he thought would make for an improved version of the 1957 Ford Ranchero. Limberg pointed out to us that, “Thankfully, Mike Long, the owner of ‘Cool Ranch,’ owns a machine shop. TMG utilized this benefit to its fullest extent.” Turns out Long is a longtime hot rodder and has done a great deal of the custom machine work for the project, even going to the extent to make a custom set of keys for his Ranchero.

Before we unveil the feature on the Cool Ranch (1957 Ranchero), we will showcase in three parts how some of the sheetmetal underwent its transformation. This month, we are going to look at how the dash and accompanying interior trim were developed. Pay particular attention to the development of the one-off aluminum wrap around the trim.

In Part 1, you will see that interior trim was added. According to Limberg, “The factory dash was screaming for something in the empty void after all the items were removed that were no longer needed. Most original cars just had a different color painted in the center of the dash, and some models even had random pieces of trim. After discarding all the dash accessories, the original trim couldn’t be used due to the hole locations. That’s why the custom interior metalwork was done.”

In Part 2, we will explore how the bed trim was handled and continue with the theme of “wrap-around 360-degree trim.” After spending a lot of time cleaning up the factory bed trim on this vehicle, the idea was formed to incorporate that design into the interior. Once that idea was conceptually proven, the decision was made to make the trim wrap completely around the interior. Limberg told us, “The bed trim wraps all the way around the bed, so why not make the interior trim do the same?”

We will conclude in Part 3 with what TMG did to restyle and “tighten” the front bumper’s fit and we probably won’t be able to resist throwing in some final assembly photos as a teaser of what you can expect in the final feature.