1976 Ford F-250 Highboy - Backward Glances - Four Wheeler Magazine
In 1976, the era of the highboy truck was over and Ford was the last holdout. A true highboy has a divorced transfer case, meaning it is separate and connected to the transmission via a short driveshaft, rather than being married to the back of the transmission as is common today. Among other things, that divorced layout necessitates a very long front driveshaft and, for clearance, the ride height of the truck must be higher. In the early days of 4x4 pickups, virtually all were in the highboy club because the first 4x4 pickups were conversions of a 4x2 chassis. Those first highboys were even higher than later trucks because there were often clearance issues between the front axle, driveshaft and the engine. The end result was a much higher cargo loading height versus that of a 4x2, more entry/egress effort for the human cargo and a higher center of gravity. Dodge was fully lowboy by 1975, and International Harvester had not changed over by the time the light trucks were discontinued in 1975. Ford was the holdout and wasn’t fully changed over until the beginning of 1977 (some sources say the end of... Source: www.fourwheeler.com
