Ford CEO Visits the F-150 Pickup That Walmart Founder Drove Until His Death

By: Saajan Jogia Published: October 11, 2026 – 11:00 am Saajan Jogia October 11, 2026 Add MotorBiscuit as a preferred source Great wealth is often flaunted through expensive cars, but Walmart founder Sam Walton preferred something far more modest – a battered old Ford pickup. Ford CEO Jim Farley recently got a closer look at the truck that remained Walton’s trusted ride for years.

According to Ford Authority, Farley saw Walton’s 1979 F-150 Custom at the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, while attending the Heartland Summit, a gathering of policymakers, investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. He shared photos of the visit on Instagram.

The truck is anything but flashy. It has roughly 65,000 original miles, a four-speed manual gearbox and four-wheel drive, a setup that suited Walton’s hunting trips. A plaque carries words from his wife, Helen, who wrote:

“[Sam simply loved to drive a truck, that’s all. During hunting season, he could come home, pick up his dogs, and off he would go. He loved that.”

Image Credit: Jim Farley Walton also had a sharp reply for anyone who asked why a billionaire kept a pickup. He joked that a Rolls-Royce was hardly the right ride for his dogs, and said an ostentatious lifestyle didn’t suit him.

He drove the F-150 until he died in 1992. Inside, the exhibit keeps his original papers, registration, keys, and sunglasses, arranged as he left them. The body has been carefully detailed, yet its dents and scrapes were left untouched, evidence of years of real work.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jim Farley (@jimfarley98)

The museum itself has its own story. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes that Walton opened the first version of it in 1990, and that his pickup was driven into the space for display after his death. Today it sits in the final gallery. The museum closed for a stretch, with its contents temporarily housed elsewhere in Bentonville, before returning to its original location in early 2025.

The truck has inspired imitation, too. Jay Leno and Walmart teamed up on a tribute built from a 2021 F-150, finished in the same red-and-white two-tone paint as Walton’s original and fitted with dog kennels in the bed.

There is something fitting about the head of Ford visiting this particular vehicle. The F-150 is a workhorse, and Walton’s example shows what that means in practice: a tool used daily by someone who could have afforded anything.

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