Is there any way to tell if a truck has A/C from the VIN? The F-250 4X4 that Im getting I actually have no idea if it has A/C or not, and it wont be here for another week. Did these trucks typically even have a/c in '81 ?

 

No, you can't tell. My 80 has A/C, but it was loaded from the factory. I don't know how common that was.

 

Factory A/C is not evident from the VIN or the body trim codes.
If you happen to have a picture, look at the center dash on passenger side.
If there are two black rectangle horizontal vents, it had factory air. There should also be two rectangle vertical vents, one on each side of the instrument cluster.

Most 1980-1986 F-Series and Bronco that were delivered in the South East, South Central, and South West all had a/c, also many work trucks had a/c.

Many trucks sold into the Northern locations had a/c except work trucks.

Of course there are exceptions but that was the norm for the time.

Bottom line is most of the 1980-1986 F-Series and Bronco do have factory a/c.

A dealers game here was for the HAFDA (Houston Area Ford Dealers Association) to order hundreds of F-150 and F-250 XLT two tone paint trucks as AD units (Advertisement Units) and hawk them as equipped!, not stripped! They were all 6cyl, some manual transmission, some automatic, all with A/C, Power Steering, Power Brakes, AM radio. That's it. No rear bumper, no other options. They would list them at the time for between $9995 and 10,995 as price leaders. A loaded XLT was $13,995 on up. They sold thousands of the loaded units here.

The Lariat option never really caught on until the 1988 model year, when that was all you saw in the XLT F-Series. By 1988 the Ranger XLT took over the $9995-10,995 price slot, allowing the F-Series to climb the price ladder to 15,995 and up.