2003 Ford F-250 Super Duty With Just 5,300 Miles Is For Sale

We’ve covered some wonderful vintage and classic vehicles going up for auction over the years, but this manages to be both vanilla and awesome at the same time. If we flick through our little book of automotive clichés, this 2003 Ford F-250 Super Duty XL is well-deserving of the phrase “time capsule.” Yes, you’re getting older – 2003 was 22 years ago, and this plain white regular cab long-bed pickup on factory steel wheels has only 5,300 miles on the clock. It also has all the specs to make this a great work or tow truck here in 2025, if you can deal with 13 to 14 mpg and a super-basic basic four-speed transmission.

The Simplicity Offered Here Is Attractive

The interior of the F-250 we’re looking at here on Bring A Trailer is Medium Flint cloth and vinyl. It does have air conditioning at least, and there’s an AM/FM stereo in the dash (sadly, there’s no vintage CD or cassette player with it). For towing, it has a receiver hitch and an aftermarket trailer brake controller. It also has a rear step bumper and side running boards (remember those?) from Dee Zee, a company still in business. Inside, the interior includes a simple bench seat for the single-cab truck, mounted to an honest-to-goodness vinyl floor that still looks new.

Under the hood you’ll find the stars of the show. There’s a 5.4-liter Triton V8 that was factory-rated at 260 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque when new, and a four-speed automatic transmission hooked to just the rear wheels. This powertrain comes from a time when fuel injection had become a mature technology, but computers and sensors hadn’t taken over the engine and transmission entirely, let alone the suspension. That means an intelligent enthusiast with tools or competent local mechanic can work on, or tune, the truck.

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Now, the 5.4-liter Triton V8 had something of a bad reputation, but this is the first generation of the modular engine which had some things to keep an eye on. The biggest issue involved spark plugs getting unexpectedly launched from the engine; Ford didn’t have quite enough thread in the head to hold them in place. The other big issues you might see talked about, are mainly relevant to the 4.6 version, as far as we can tell.

This Could Be A Crazy Bargain

The more we look at this truck, the more tempting it becomes. At the time of writing, bidding on the 2003 F-250 XL was up to $12,000 with a day to go. Even if it goes up to $25,000, that’s less expensive than a $28,145 Ford Maverick, although considerably less fuel efficient. A new F-250 XL will set you back at least $45,300 and, while it still has steel wheels and white paint, it’s also 4G Wi-Fi connected, a slave to computers, and the chances of recalls are high. Meanwhile, the old truck is (probably) much cheaper, has the vibe and practicality of simplicity, and its recall days are over.

But we suspect the buyer for this truck is not someone looking for a clean, older rig. 5,300 miles is crazy low for any 22-year-old vehicle, never mind something that was designed strictly to work hard all day, every day. This truck truly is a time capsule, one that is seldom preserved since this Ford – back in 2003, anyway – wasn’t anything special.

Now, it could be unique in the world.

Source: Bring A Trailer