Black Out Edition

ISO information on the illusive Black Out Edition.

From what I have learned so far and what brought me here to the forum is this.

The Black Out Package entails the following changes in the exterior of the 80 to 86 Ford Trucks and Broncos.

Rather then bright all of the following items are treated with black paint, anodizing, molded in color.
1. Windshield surround.
2. Windshield wipers.
3. Mirrors.
4. Door Handles and Locks.
5. Grill and bright work around grill.
6. Head light bezels.
7. Area around the side windows.

I have never seen one of these in person until the recent purchase of a 1984 Bronco that has all the markings of a Black out Edition. This Bronco is an XLT, Blue interior and dark grey metallic and black tutone. The grill and surrounds are all black, the mirrors are black, the door handles and locks are black. The Bronco was painted at some point and I cannot tell if the windows were blacked out as well. I have only ever seen pictures of the black out on and XLS but not all XLS packages where blacked out. I do have the build sheet of this particular Bronco but cannot make out all the information on it.

I greatly appreciate any information you might have on this package and what it came with and on. Thank you!

This is interesting… I have never heard of, or seen this treatment/package. I did a fair bit of digging into the particulars of the XLS package, and all of the blackout trim pieces have “E2” part numbers suggesting they were not offered before 1982. The Aeronose Lightning pickups continued to use the 1982 black door handle part number, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the blackout parts had a run longer than two years. NOS black headlight buckets seem to pop up on eBay more than a two-year XLS run would suggest, so ordering black trim as an option after 1983 seems likely.

I, too, have seen many pictures of XLS with bright trim but my assumption is it was replaced at some point. The blackout treatment didn’t age particularly well. The side window treatment seems oddly absent on many XLS. I asked Christopher Lott about this on his recent restoration, and whether this was originally paint or a vinyl appliqué. He said originally it was both. It was painted on with a vinyl edge. That being the case, it would not have been something a dealer could easily add as an option after the fact. If you have the VIN of a known or suspected blackout edition, it would be quite interesting to purchase the full Marti report on it. You might also hit up Lott on Facebook to see if he knows anything. He is definitely into the rare packages.