Fear & Loathing in Dearborn: The History of Ford’s Free Wheeling Package

The American automotive industry in the mid-70s was a beast stumbling through a dark room, bleeding from a thousand regulatory cuts. The Golden Age of horsepower was dead, murdered by the Clean Air Act, the OPEC oil embargo, and insurance adjusters who lacked a sense of humor. The air in Detroit was thick with the smog of desperation. 

Muscle cars, once the kings of the asphalt jungle, had been castrated—stripped of their high-compression dignity and forced to wear heavy rubber bumpers like orthopedic shoes. The Mustang had shrunk into a Pinto-based economy car; the GTO was a memory; the Challenger was gone. It was the Malaise Era. A time when "performance" was a dirty word.

As the testosterone drained out of the coupe market, it didn't just evaporate—it migrated. It moved from the street to the trail, from the sleek lines of a fastback to the blunt, brutal architecture of the pickup truck. 

The youth of America, high on the freedom of the open road (and perhaps other things wink wink) turned their backs on the neutered passenger cars on offer and looked toward the utility segment. They wanted something that could haul a motorcycle, climb a dune, and double as a mobile living room on a Saturday night.

Into this chaotic cultural void, the Ford Motor Company dropped a bomb. It wasn't a technological marvel or a horsepower monster. It was a sticker package. But it was a sticker package that defined a generation. They called it the Free Wheeling package, and for five glorious years between 1977 and 1981, it turned the utilitarian F-Series into a rolling billboard for the excesses of the disco decade.

What you’re about to read is an autopsy of a specific moment in the American psyche. It is an exploration of how Ford product planners, designers, and marketers, operating under the haze of the late 70s, managed to capture the zeitgeist in three colors of reflective vinyl tape.

Vanning and the Street Freaks

To understand the Free Wheeling phenomenon, one must first look at the petri dish from which it spawned: the custom van craze. By 1974, the Ford Econoline, the Dodge Tradesman, and the Chevy Van had ceased to be bulky tools for plumbers and electricians. They had become canvases.

The Vanning movement was a grassroots explosion of automotive hedonism. It was a subculture built on the premise that a vehicle should be a personal sanctuary, a mobile lounge, a "Sin Bin." 

Young men and women across the Midwest and West Coast were buying panel vans and transforming them into rolling hallucinations. They cut porthole windows into the steel sides—teardrops, diamonds, hearts. They upholstered the interiors in shag carpet deep enough to lose a shoe in, installed captain’s chairs that swivelled like bar stools, and bolted CB radios to the dashboards.

But the defining characteristic of the custom van was the paint. These weren't factory paint codes. Oh no. These were murals. Masterpieces. Airbrushed scenes of Frank Frazetta warriors fighting fire-breathing dragons, desert sunsets melting Dali-like into the horizon, and wizards casting spells over purple mountain ranges. And surrounding these murals were stripes—endless, wrapping, undulating stripes in gradients of orange, yellow, and brown.

The Factory Response: The Cruising Van

Ford’s product planners in Dearborn were watching. They saw the "Street Freaks" cruising Woodward Avenue and the van-ins where thousands of customized rigs gathered in fields to party. They realized there was money on the table. The kids were spending thousands of dollars in the aftermarket to customize their rides. Why shouldn't Ford offer that look straight from the factory? It was low hanging fruit. 

In 1976, Ford launched the Cruising Van. It was the first shot in the war of the stripes. Based on the redesigned Econoline, the Cruising Van came from the factory with a wild, multi-colored stripe package, styled steel wheels, and a carpeted interior. It was a sanitized, warrantied version of the street van, safe enough for a dealership lot but wild enough to convince a 22-year-old he was buying freedom.

The success of the Cruising Van proved a thesis: Style could sell trucks. You didn't need a 400-horsepower engine if you looked fast standing still. You didn't need a complex suspension if you had "Trick" wheels. The visual language of the 70s—the warm gradients, the blacked-out trim, the rugged individualism—could be packaged and sold.

The logical next step was to apply this formula to the F-Series pickup. The pickup truck was already ascending. In 1977, the F-Series would overtake Chevrolet to become the best-selling truck in America, a title it has refused to relinquish for nearly half a century. But to cement this dominance, Ford needed to once and for all hook the young buyer.

The Anatomy of a Sunset

The Free Wheeling package was formally introduced for the 1977 model year, but it hit its stride in 1978 and 1979. It was available across the light truck lineup: the F-100, F-150, F-250, the Bronco, the Econoline, and the compact Courier.

The package wasn't just a single option either. It was a hierarchy of style, broken down into "Package A" and "Package B." It was a menu of decadence.

The most radical design choice of the Free Wheeling package was the rejection of chrome. For fifty years, Detroit had measured luxury in square footage of electroplated brightwork. Bumpers, grilles, mirrors, door handles—if it didn't shine, it wasn't premium.

The Free Wheeling designers, likely influenced by European rally cars and custom "blackout" trends in the hot rod world, took a can of black paint to the previously gleaming F-Series. The center grille shell, typically anodized aluminum or chrome, was painted low-gloss black. The massive steel bumpers were painted black on many packages. and the "West Coast" towing mirrors or the smaller sport mirrors were finished in black.

This "blackout" treatment had a profound psychological effect. It made the truck look smaller, tighter, and more aggressive. It transformed the F-150 from a farm implement into a piece of tactical gear.

And then came the stripes. Lots and lots of stripes. Ford didn't just use standard vinyl for these stripes either. They utilized Chromatic Tape, a technology developed in partnership with companies like 3M. This wasn't a flat sticker. It was a multi-layered, retro-reflective prismatic sheet.

When sunlight hit the stripe, it showed a deep, rich gradient. But at night, when hit by the headlights of an oncoming car, the stripe glowed. It was a safety feature masquerading as a psychedelic light show. And the brochures bragged about it: "A new reflective chromatic tape stripe is optional... at night time when lights were displayed on it the chromatic tape stripes would actually glow in the dark".

The colors were strictly codified to match the fashion of the era and split into two styles. The warm Sunset palette of russet, orange, and yellow (usually paired with Raven Black or Wimbledon White paint) evoked the heat of the desert, the California sunset, and the warmth of a campfire. And a cooler Oceanic palette of dark blue, medium blue, and light blue typically found on silver or white trucks.

The Free Wheeling Family is Born

The F-Series

The Free Wheeling infection spread across the entire Ford light truck catalog. Each model interpreted the aesthetic differently, creating a diverse ecosystem of striped beasts.

The F-Series was the volume leader. The 1977-1979 "Dentside" body style, with its broad, flat flanks and deep body groove, was the perfect substrate for the stripe package. What started as subtle pinstripes outlining the wheel arches on the Stepsides in 1977 grew thicker in 1978 on the Rangers. Culminating in the tailgate of the 1979 F-150 Free Wheeling that featured a massive reflective orange panel with "FORD" in black block letters—a piece of plastic now worth its weight in gold to restorers.

The 78’ & 79’ Bronco

The F-150 might’ve been the workhorse, but the Bronco was the party animal. The second-generation Bronco, based on the F-150 chassis, was a massive, imposing vehicle. The Free Wheeling package turned it into a celebrity.

Because of the fiberglass rear roof, the Bronco offered unique two-tone paint options. The "Raven Black" Free Wheeling Bronco with the chromatic stripes is arguably the definitive image of late-70s 4x4 culture. It was the truck you drove to the beach bonfire. It was the truck you drove to the ski lodge. It was the truck you drove when you wanted everyone to know you had arrived.

As we all know the 78-79 Bronco had a criminally short production run of just two years. This scarcity, combined with the high attrition rate of off-road vehicles, has made the Free Wheeling Bronco a "Holy Grail" for collectors.

The Courier

Ford couldn't ignore the fuel crisis entirely. The Courier, a badge-engineered Mazda B-Series, was their fighter in the emerging mini-truck wars. But, according to Ford production planners, small trucks didn't have to be boring too.

The Courier Free Wheeling package was arguably the most aggressive of the bunch. It featured a massive "COURIER" script decal on the tailgate in the full rainbow gradient. It had the push bar, the fog lights, and the roll bar. It anticipated the Mini Truck craze of the 1980s by a full decade. It was a scrappy, buzzy little vehicle that wore its stripes like war paint.

The Pinto Cruising Wagon

And then there was the Pinto. The Pinto Cruising Wagon is the delightful space-age freak of the family. Imagine George Jetson french kissing Tony Manero. Ford took the Pinto wagon, panelled over the rear windows with steel, cut a porthole in the side, and slapped the full Free Wheeling stripe package on it.

It was a delivery sedan for a surfer who had lost his way. It makes no sense in a rational world. It is slow, it is strange, and it is absolutely magnificent. It proves that in the late 70s, Ford was willing to try anything to move metal. Something that modern car manufacturers could learn a thing or two from.

The Cultural Engine: Why It Worked

Why did this work? Why did grown adults pay extra money for stickers?

The answer lies in the specific cultural frequency of the late 70s. It was a time of peacocking. Men’s fashion had moved away from the gray flannel suit of the 50s and the skinny ties of the 60s into the realm of wide lapels, polyester blends, and unbuttoned shirts. If you were wearing a mustard-yellow leisure suit, you couldn't drive a beige sedan. You needed a vehicle that matched your plumage.

In a world of corporate consolidation and government regulation, the Free Wheeling truck owner was a cowboy, a renegade. The black push bar suggested he might need to ram a gate. The roll bar suggested he might flip the truck while chasing bandits (or just having too much fun). The stripes suggested he watched the sunset from places you probably couldn’t get to in your lame sedan.

It was a brilliant marketing pivot. They couldn't sell speed anymore—the smog-choked V8s could barely wheeze their way to 100mph. So they sold adventure. They sold the look of speed. They sold a vibe.

The Comedown: The 80s and the Fade

Like all good parties, the Free Wheeling era had to end. And the hangover arrived in 1980. The 1980 model year brought the "Bullnose" redesign to the F-Series. The trucks became squarer, lighter. The organic, muscular curves of the Dentside era were gone. The heavy steel bumpers were replaced with lighter units.

The Free Wheeling package lingered for the 1980 and 1981 model years, but the magic was fading. The sun had dipped below the horizon. The glow was gone. The stripes became geometric, straighter, less psychedelic. The culture was shifting.

By 1982, the Free Wheeling package was dead, replaced by the "STX" and "Sport" trims. The rainbow stripes peeled in the sun. The black bumpers rusted. The trucks were used, abused, and sent to the crusher. For thirty years, they were forgotten, just another piece of detritus from a decade that style forgot.

The Resurrection

But nostalgia is a powerful drug. As Generation X and Millennials came into money, they began to look back fondly on the vehicles of their childhoods. The smell of old vinyl, the analog clunk of a door latch, the sight of a rainbow stripe—it all came rushing back. The collector market for 77-79 Fords exploded. And Ford, never one to miss a trend they themselves invented, decided to bring the party back in 2024 with the revival of the Bronco nameplate.

The 2024 Bronco Sport Free Wheeling edition wasn't a V8-powered monster however. It was a compact crossover with a 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine. But they tried their hardest with the look. It had reflective red, orange, and yellow graphics on the hood, sides, and liftgate. It had a silver-painted grille with two-tone Bronco badging. It had 17-inch high-gloss black wheels with red accents, a modern nod to the old painted steelies. And it had some sunset ombre stitching in the seats.

Steve Gilmore, Ford's chief designer for Vehicle Personalization, put it plainly in the press release: "Bronco has always been about fun and capability since day one and Free Wheeling's looks kick that up a notch with its sunset inspired beach vibes. We’ve modernized the new Bronco Free Wheeling in line with today’s fashion and graphic trends".

The automotive press, usually cynical about "sticker packages," largely embraced it. Reviews from The Drive and Jalopnik admitted that while it was purely cosmetic, it was fun. In a world of angry, aggressive grayscale SUVs, a car that looked like a sunrise was a welcome relief. It was "retro goodness" that tapped into the "Bee Gees video" aesthetic.

The success of the Sport emboldened Ford to go bigger. In 2025, the full-size Bronco received the treatment. Based on the Big Bend trim, the 2025 Bronco Free Wheeling is a direct, unapologetic clone of the 1979 legend. It features the silver grille, the red-outlined "BRONCO" letters, and the option to pair the stripes with the "Sasquatch" off-road package. Now, one could buy a factory-warrantied vehicle with 35-inch mud tires, locking differentials, and a paint job that looks like a tequila sunrise. It was a worth attempt at a revival, even if the execution didn’t appease the old-timers and Free Wheeling purists.

The Free Wheeling rigs of the 70s were big, beautiful, ridiculous, wonderful machines. Beasts on parade. King Kong in a disco suit. And somehow it worked. But the new versions, though a valiant effort at rekindling the flame, fail to really capture the splendor of the 70s Freewheelers. They feel like an echo. A muted memory that we can quite coax into clarity. Proof that while the party never ends at some point the neighbors ask us to turn the volume down.