Ford Built A Mustang Pickup In Secret, And It's Cooler Than The Maverick Could Ever Be

Now the manager of Ford's heritage fleet is ready to show off the Mustang Ute that could have been. And dare we say, maybe it should've been?

Ford Built A Truckstang Then Buried It For Years

The hard part of building a concept car isn't the design work, it's the actual building. Taking the ideas penned and sculpted in the design studio and then turning them into actual steel. You can't just run a concept car fender through a mold in a press you already have; you need someone who can take a flat sheet and make it sing.

Ford techs built this car to help ensure Ford had people who could turn the concept into a show car. Matt Korczyk, Ford Heritage Fleet Manager, posted photos of the S550 Mustang Ute to his Instagram account, along with an explanation.

"This concept was built by the team in the Ford EVB Metal Shop," he posted. "As a way to train apprentices by allowing them to get real world, hands-on experience by way of building a concept car."

It took hundreds of hours to turn a stock Mustang into a truck. Korczyk calls it a reminder of how important skilled trades are to the company; it doesn't just train their skills but helps them show those skills off. These photos mark the first time the concept has ever been seen outside of Ford's Experimental Vehicles Building.

Would Buyers Go For A Mustang That Isn't The Classic Pony Car?

Does the Ford Mustang work as a Ute-style pickup? The signature three-lamp taillights don't exactly give you a wide tailgate, and that might be the biggest obstacle between this car and production possibility. The choice of where to cut the roof looks almost perfect. It's at the right place to give it a cool baseball-cap look, like the Mini Coupe. Then it cuts in to meet the most prominent point of the Mustang's wide rear fenders.

As a truck, the Mustang seems to work. The back seats of the coupe and convertible are mostly useless anyway, and this adds a lot more space than the Mustang's trunk could ever offer.

No, Ford never planned to make this a production model. But if the company wanted to keep moving away from cars and into trucks, this would be a pretty neat way to keep the Mustang name alive. Don't worry – Ford CEO Jim Farley is a huge Mustang fan. He's made it clear the car isn't going away, though he would love to help make it a bit lighter.

Does this Truckstang work, or is it just the bodywork? Korczyk didn't say, but we don't think this is a running and driving car. Check out that front wheel gap – it screams "nope, there's no engine in here," instead of sitting at factory ride height.​​​​​​​