I have started looking through some of my oldest pictures, deciding that some of these cars should no longer be forced to wait in the purgatory that is my photo cache. Like this one.
The original Bronco came out in 1966 and was left alone until 1977. A recipe for disaster? Usually. But not in this case.
This car was shot in early June of 2011, within the first three weeks of my Curbside Classic Car Chasing. I have written up everything found before this one (except for a black Fiero that just doesn’t excite me in the least) and had always intended to put this buckeroo in the CC spotlight.
But then Paul did a thorough writeup on an early Bronco a few months later, and I just kept finding other things, and, . . . . . . . yeah.
Is there a vehicle that you felt a special kinship with when it came out? With me it was the Bronco. I was a young kid when these were introduced – it may have been the first genuinely new vehicle I saw from the beginning. I got more than one as toys and to finish it all off my father got a brand new Country Squire that same year. I recall being a little mystified as to how Dad could pass up a Bronco for a Squire. Parents . . . what do you do with them?
That it kept the same wheelcovers in later years that were on Dad’s Squire made the Bronco all the better.
Speaking of wheelcovers, someone help me out – are these from a ’71 Chevy?
Even though I never knew anybody with one, I retained a special affection for the Bronco. It was a little like Woody in the Toy Story movies – there it was, never changing from the time I was a six year old playing with toy cars until I had my driver’s license and my own car – a Ford, naturally.
I found it odd that the Bronco was offered year after year after year with no really significant alterations. Yes, there were little details here and there for the true BroncoNerds to obsess over, but nothing I could identify at a glance.
On how many cars have we noticed the usually-fatal cycle: Introduction, then no attention or investment as the car becomes less and less competitive and is eventually killed off. But for a vehicle that saw almost no change over the twelve model years of its lifespan, the Bronco seemed to just shrug. Production figures tell the tale – it sold as well in 1977 as it did in 1967. Would a 2019 version still be good for 15-18,000 annual units if Ford had not changed things up for 1978? Who knows.
| 1966-1977 Ford Bronco production | |
|---|---|
| Year | Units |
| 1966 | 23,776 |
| 1967 | 14,230 |
| 1968 | 16,629 |
| 1969 | 20,956 |
| 1970 | 18,450 |
| 1971 | 19,784 |
| 1972 | 21,115 |
| 1973 | 21,894 |
| 1974 | 25,824 |
| 1975 | 13,125 |
| 1976 | 15,256 |
| 1977 | 14,546 |
I suppose we should acknowledge that the rest of the prehistoric SUV market had not stood still in that time. The International Scout II could boast of almost 40,000 units in 1977 and there were nearly 87,000 Chevy Blazers shoved out of the doors that year. I guess time marched on after all.
It is evident from Ford’s advertising that the company still thought of the Bronco as more of an accessory than as primary transportation. It was advertising the Bronco as a useful second vehicle in 1969 . . .
. . . and had not changed focus by 1973. In fact, it doesn’t seem that the Bronco ever really got much advertising support after it was introduced.
So perhaps letting the Bronco sit unattended for so long did have a negative effect. Then, at least. There was supposed to be a new 1974 Bronco that followed the pattern of Chevy and Dodge in using the new 1973 pickup truck as the starting point for an offroad 4×4. But for various reasons Ford placed that project on the back burner as it modernized pretty much everything else in its lineup. The big Bronco did not arrive until 1978 for its two year run – perhaps the shortest model run of anything ever built by Ford?
From our vantage point today, however, Ford’s lack of interest in the Bronco is one of the best things that ever happened in the company. Ford’s product planning malaise of the ’70s led to the least-malaisey thing the company built in that decade – the only vehicle virtually identical in 1977 to the stuff built in the second year of the Mustang. Perhaps this is why these Broncos have become so hugely popular among collectors, restorers and “builders” today – the original package is so appealing to us now in a way that the newer, bigger ones are not.
It is really hard to ID the years of these first generation Broncos. I tried looking at brochures, but that was little help. It seems that Ford re-used the same pictures over years.
This one in particular was a hardy perennial. Camping in 1971 looked just like . . .
. . . camping in 1976. This one must have been taken a little later in the day because Stan had time to swap roofs on the one in the background. Oh, wait . . .
I was able to ID the color as Harbor Blue, but again this was little help as this basic non-metallic medium blue was offered on Ford trucks every year from 1967 through 1974.
I finally found a site that told me that the engine callout badge for the 302 came for 1969 and went away after 1971. So let’s split the difference and call this one a 1970. Which works nicely because it matches almost exactly the one used on the cover of the brochure that year.
But with as much modification as many of these Broncos seem to have gotten over the years and with as few changes as they saw, year matters less than with about anything else I can think of.
The Retro Factor also comes into play in where this Bronco was parked. In 2011 my mother had a knee replacement done. I shot another, bigger Bronco in the parking lot of the hospital where she had the surgery done. When she moved into a nursing facility for rehab before she could go home I caught this one on one of my visits there.
Unfortunately she is now back into this very same nursing facility, after a long, rough road that has not yet come to an end. I park in this very same parking lot now and every time I remember this Bronco – which I have not seen since it was captured in these shots. I guess long, rough, downhill roads and Broncos kind of go together.
In the years these Broncos were being built I remember people talking about TV personality Dick Clark and how he seemed immune from aging. In the late 1970’s it was a common remark that Clark had not seemed to age in the previous fifteen or twenty years. The original generation of the Bronco aged just as well as Clark did. Most of the rest of us, of course, cannot say the same about ourselves. And even Dick Clark was eventually caught and beaten up by Father Time. But maybe the struggles of aging that we all face make us appreciate something like this Bronco all the more.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Related Reading
1969 Ford Bronco – The Mustang’s Bucking Sidekick (Paul Niedermeyer)
I love this version. Seems the right size for offroad goodness (Like a Jeep). The Big “78” one is too Big.
When they made the new one, it should have been more like this OG version, IMO.
Interesting that one of the Bronco ads shown here (Red Bronco with Lady & 2 children shopping), it says:
” 6 or V8 Engines (V8 Required in California).”
Seems Cali usually requires the smaller engine. Was the Ford 6 THAT bad when it came to pollution (compared to the V8)?
I doubt it. California emissions required a separate certification process and individual inspection (each car or truck off the line had to be compliant, not just an average handful), and so automakers were reluctant to offer lower-volume engines in California.
Lucky then the Big 1978 didn’t came earlier. There was some plans to get the “full-size” Bronco more earlier but the first oil crash delayed their plans.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160504005844/https://vehiclevoice.com/2014/02/21/fords-first-big-bronco-shorthorn/
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/an-entire-generation-of-ford-bronco-was-lost-to-the-gas-crisis-heres-what-it-could-have-looked-like/
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/from-barris-to-bubble-doors-fords-bronco-concepts-kept-reinterpreting-the-off-road-experience/
I would imagine that from ’66-’70, the Bronco was the *easiest* SUV to buy. Both Kaiser and I-H light truck dealers were probably pretty scarce, but there was a Ford dealer in every city and many smaller towns.
These Broncos look great, and I love that this one was left more or less stock; I have no interest whatsoever in restomods, although I understand that I’m in the minority. All that aside, there is no way I’d pay what these are selling for to own one…it’s crazy the money they bring.
Love the Dick Clark reference; I always felt a little bad when he appeared on his “Rockin’ Eve” shows later in his life. Bonus points for his appearance in Adam-12 as a drag strip owner.
Crazy money…but you can apparently recoup some of that investment by having wedding couples pose in front of them. As long as the wheels don’t fall off. 😉
I too love the Dick Clark reference, and also that you remembered his appearance on Adam-12! Not only was I a HUGE Adam-12 fan, but my mom (who graduated from High School in 1959) was a huge Dick Clark fan. I remember that particular episode of Adam-12 being all the rage in my house when it aired.
I have a thing for ’60s and ’70s cop shows, Jeff. I own all seasons of Adam-12 and The Rockford Files on DVD because I’m clearly well-adjustedish.
Me, Streets of San Francisco naturally.
As for the Bronco I would lay down a bet that it is still around. A 1970 model, shot in 2011, makes it 41 years old and in excellent condition. Someone has taken care of it for 41 years and I can’t see them slacking off as those, like us, don’t do that.
I always thought for ’78 they should’ve facelifted what they had – give it a plastic grille with square headlights like what vans got for ’79, a Foxbody dash and seats and a fiberglass top with slide-open side windows, and it would’ve been good to go until the Bronco II was ready in ’84.
Was this the first off-roader to be advertised as a “Sport Utility” or “Sports Utility” vehicle?
Nope. Crosley had one back in 1948: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-ads-and-brochures/vintage-ad-1948-crosley-sports-utility-the-mini-proto-suv/
I think these Broncos were a superior vehicle to their contemporaries in a few ways despite the seeming lack of changes over the years. I remember them as such. By the end of the run they had a coil spring front ends, Dana 44s front and Ford 9 inch rear axles and available limited slip both front and rear with 4:10 gears and a 302. Substituting a NP435 for the 3 speed would have made them even better off roaders. None of which matters now but stock for stock at the time they were well equipped.
Also remember waffling on buying a 76 for $1500. Ouch.
It’s a very cool little SUV from long before the time when you’d buy one unless you could had a rational “need” for it. The advertising talking about a second vehicle is just one of several signals that buying one of these as an around town or suburban driver made you pretty weird. Not that they were terrible for that, but definitely a compromise: along with the rougher ride, you had the possibility of putting it on its side making an evasive maneuver. But that was back in the day when nobody hesitated to tell you “what did you expect” if you tried to complain.
Obviously no traditional manufacturer could continue to offer such a vehicle, but I bet Ford could run off a few thousand of these every five years and sell every one at a decent profit. It’s too bad so many people turned them into overbuilt off-roaders, because the bigger, later Bronco was a much better choice for that. The original Bronco was more ideal to the role many Subarus fill now, where you need ground clearance and 4wd, but nothing crazy. It’s a good enough basic package that Ford brought it back, but called it the “Bronco II.” Shouldn’t the 1/2 ton Bronco have been the “II?”
Just like the tail lights on Pintos and Mavericks always made me think that they were just the lamps from the Ford pickups turned on their side…the Bronco’s speedometer/gauge combo was the same one they used on the Econoline vans in the early sixties, and THAT I believe utilized the speedo from the 1956 Fords. If that’s the case, that’s a lot of mileage (pun intended) coming from the FOMOCO parts bin!
After almost 50 years of owning only GM vehicles I made a move to Ford Bronco 4 cylinder turbo 7 speed manual. As one who has never purchased an automatic, finding a suitable stick shift vehicle is challenging. Mine was special ordered and I love it. The original Broncos while cool,never thrilled me mostly due to a lack of a floor shifted tranny.
Whoa, I had no idea Ford still sold ANYTHING with a stick, other than the Mustang. I don’t think you’ve been able to buy a Ford truck with a stick in over ten years (yet another reason to hang onto my ’97 F-250). Nice-looking rig; glad you can still get one with a stick!
Now MY special kinship was with the C3 Corvette, which enjoyed a similar long run with only minor or detailing changes. And someone else was eventually willing to step up with a small two-seater displaying those same buttressed C-pillars.
Great pics and memories!
Drove a ’72 with a Mickey Thompson package. 302 and 3 on the tree. Fun. Other than the street, drove it on sand and sand dunes. I was too chicken to climb rocks. Very tipsy it was. Wonder what it’d be worth today?
The third generation “big” Bronco had an even longer run, although it did get facelifts and power train updates. These ran from 1980 to 1996 alongside the “OBS” F150, and consequently had the same front sheet metal dash and engine changes.
One of the high schoolers in my Boy Scout troop had fairly late example (this was in 1976) and while I never rode in it I did comment on the 3 on the tree, which odd to me because our car had 4 on the floor and the Jeeps I was familiar with also had floor shifts. Then again my 93 Ranger was the first vehicle in my immediate family with a column shift in my lifetime.
They were all 3 on the tree until 1973, when an automatic was finally offered.