B700

Ford introduced this bus-oriented cowled chassis as part of its 1980 heavy-truck lineup, when the company shifted its medium-duty range to the new three-digit naming system. It served school bus and other body-builder applications rather than a conventional retail truck role, and it was positioned as the bus counterpart to Ford’s medium-duty F-Series offerings. Through the 1980s and early 1990s, the nameplate remained a familiar sight in the North American yellow-school-bus market, where second-stage manufacturers paired Ford chassis with bodies from Thomas, Blue Bird, and others. Contemporary Ford data books show the model in regular production through the early 1990s, and later parts references continue to list 1994 as the final model year for this exact badge. Ford then moved away from the external B-700 style designation, with the following 1995-era cowled buses carrying simplified B-Series badging instead. The result was a long-running, utilitarian nameplate closely associated with rugged school bus service and Ford’s medium-duty truck era.