Yahoo Autos BFP Retro F-150 First Drive Review: A modern pickup gets a custom 1980s look
CINCINNATI, Ohio — The motto at Beechmont Ford Performance is, “You imagine, we build.” Enthusiasts know enthusiasts don’t only dream of power-to-weight or dollar-to-horsepower ratios. Some dream of eras, especially vehicles they grew up with, or perhaps drove in high school. The mob of restomodded, six-figure pickups proves there’s an audience for the late 1970s to the early 1990s truck era, back when two doors and a bench seat was the bacon and eggs of configuration. For those enthusiasts — this writer included — there’s the BFP Retro F-150.
If we consider the 2023 Ford F-150 Heritage Edition a light bit of dress-up on an XLT, the BFP version is fully accessorized cosplay. The former’s a bedsheet-with-eye-holes ghost, the latter, Ghost Face.
Keeping in mind the “imagine” ethos, BFP will build a Retro on any F-150 with any engine that a customer wants. But the stock rig is built on a 4WD XLT for immersion, drivers invited to grab a fist full of column shifter just like the old days. Higher trims get Ford’s rotary shifter. BFP checks the box for the Chrome Appearance Package, too, Ford having used bygone F-150s to flex the automaker’s chrome game.
The sixth-gen through ninth-gen F-150s were especially famous for white-on-red and blue-on-white paint jobs. Those are the Retro’s go-to combinations, the effect created with a Satin Pearl vinyl wrap applied over the base color.
Those old Fords were not famous for generous dealer-installed upfit. From the top down, the Retro addresses that omission with a chrome bed rack capped by KC Daylighter spotlights. Each light hides behind old-school yellow caps or understated black and white KC caps for those who think yellow is a wrong turn down memory lane.
If the customer chooses Fox shocks, the truck gets a two-inch lift on a Fox 2.0 suspension kit. Go with Readylift, and there’s a three-inch lift. Overall towing capacity isn’t affected, but the three-inch shaves a touch off the allowable tongue weight. Either suspension choice works a quartet of polished aluminum 17-inch retro-look Pro Comp wheels wrapped in 33-inch BF Goodrich A/T tires with raised white letters.
A 5.0-liter Coyote making 400 horsepower goes under the hood unless the buyer requests something else. Watson said BFP “recommends the V8 for the retro sound,” the exhaust note plummeting into the bass range by an MBRP cat-back exhaust. An optional Whipple supercharger boosts Coyote output to 700 horsepower.
