A family down the block from us just got one of these new Ford Bronco's. Just like this in whatever hue of grey blue this is too. And I want one. Bad. That's saying a lot too since in general I'm not even a cross-over kind of girl let alone a "trucker". These are "trucks" seeing their based on the mid-size Ford Ranger pickup truck.
It's interesting to note that Ford used their original Bronco of 1966-1977 fame as the inspiration for their new Bronco as there's not a shred of what those of a particular vintage refer to as, "O.J.'s Bronco" in it. Then again, "O.J.'s Bronco", like all Ford Bronco's made after 1977, are far less distinctive looking than the originals. If anything, there's a whole lot more 1984-1990 Bronco II in these new Bronco's, especially the two-door models, than "O.J. Bronco". Then again, Ford probably doesn't want buyers of these new Broncos googling "Bronco II" any more than they want them googling "O.J. Bronco".
The design of this new Bronco is so good, Ford could have it called it "Simpson", and it would still be, arguably, the hottest new vehicle on the market today. I know people who've waited eighteen months for theirs to come in. That they call it something impossibly cool like "Bronco" only adds to the mystique, the allure if you will. Please note, Ford also sells something they call "Bronco Sport" and it's an entirely different vehicle. Frankly, it's an underwhelming looking affair.
You can't see in pictures just how different this thing is from my new main squeeze; but it's totally different. The Bronco Sport (above) looks like a first-generation Ford Escape. In and of itself not a bad thing but why'd they go and call this "Bronco Sport"? Holy marketing confusion, Ford Motor Company. Then again, these are same people who slap "Mustang" on an all-electric cross-over and recycle "Maverick" onto a compact pickup truck. The latter marketing faux pas far less egregious than the former. Speaking of the new Maverick, the Bronco Sport shares it's underpinnings with the new Maverick which while looking like a compact pickup, it's more like a cross-over with a pickup truck-ish body seeing it shares its guts with the Ford Escape.
Ford introduced the original Bronco in 1966 as a direct competitor to the Jeep CJ. At first offered in roadster, "half-cab" and wagon, by '68 the "roadster" (above) was gone and after 1972 all Ford Broncos were three-door wagons. Ford sold between 12,000 and 14,000 a year, one year they sold 26,000, so they were a relatively niche vehicle. I never saw one in the wild when I was growing up on Long Island in the '70's. Part of the problem was they were so small, too small for families. That didn't matter since Ford sold lots of County Squires. Offering little to no creature comforts, folks bought them for their rugged, compact utility, they were all four-wheel-drive, or they quickly came to realize they had misspent their money on a fashion statement.
Meanwhile, as Ford was attempting to out-do Jeep, debate all you want if they succeeded or not, in 1969 General Motors rolled out their full-sized, short-wheelbase pickup truck-based Chevrolet K5 "Blazer". Too bad these rode-like trucks with square wheels - these are painfully cool and again, that's coming from a dyed-in-the-wool car guy. GMC got the same vehicle for 1970 but they called it, "Jimmy". The rest, as we say, was history.
The Blazer\Jimmy was an immediate smash hit that in typical GM form didn't invent a market segment, just redefined and transformed it. Ford didn't come with any answer to the Blazer\Jimmy until 1978. In an age of "downsizing", Ford upsized the Bronco when they took a page out of GM's playbook shortening a Ford F100's wheelbase, dropping a back seat in the bed and bolting down a removal plastic top. No surprise, it sold very well. Cool as these are, there also sort of anonymous looking. Well, that was until the "O.J. 500".
Five generations of the F100\F150 based Bronco later, Ford replaced it in 1997 with the four-door only, Expedition. A bastion of civility compared to the hoary Bronco; Ford continues to produce the Expedition to this day albeit one that's gone through a gaggle of refinement and four generations over the last quarter century.
But wait, there's a chapter to this horse story that Ford probably wants to forget about. In 1984, in conjunction with the also new for 1983 Ford Ranger pickup, they foaled, (sorry) the diminutive "Bronco II". Although dimensionally quite similar to the original Bronco, if you ask me, it lacked all of its butch charm. Built through 1990, the "II" was most famous or infamous for stability problems. A top-heavy, narrow design, the "II" had a propensity to flip over. Especially in what's referred to as "J-turns"; the Ford Motor Company, naturally, blamed driver error for the roll-overs. So many "II's" flipped over injuring and killing drivers and passengers that the GEICO insurance company stopped writing policies for them.
However, to those of us of a certain vintage, "Ford Bronco" will always mean, "O.J." although, in fairness, that infamous designation probably belongs just to the white ones. Ford said that the "O.J. 500" had no bearing on their decision to drop the Bronco name in 1997 as sales of these brutes were dropping anyway. Here's the actual Bronco involved in the infamous low-speed chase on display at the "Alcatraz East Prison Museum" in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If you're wondering, the Ford V8 next to the Bronco was used in the filming of the 1967 film, "Bonnie and Clyde" and was shot up by local police prior to the filming of the scene. The "real" Bonnie and Clyde death car is on display in a casino in Nevada.
Based on how many 1966-1977 Broncos were made, there were only around 225,000, and so much time has passed since the whole "O.J. 500", much like Ford's new compact "Maverick", it probably doesn't matter what Ford calls this thing or what inspired its design. It's transcendental much in the way the "new" Mini Cooper was and still is. No one cares that it apes the lines of an older vehicle. All that said, I want one. A two-door, please. The four-doors look like shoeboxes on wheels.
Incidentally, a Bronco is a wild horse and not a particular breed or type of horse.
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