That is definitley one of my favorite parts of it. The turning radius is amazing but you still have the full size vehicle interior room. I can comfortably fit 3 car seats in the back of the bronco where I can only get two in my escape.

Funny thing about that.... Our state laws say that if a kid is 6 or older they can ride in the bed of a truck or cargo area of an suv as long as you arent on a state or US highway but if they are in a seat they have to have the proper booster seat and seat belt. 2 car seats and a booster won't fit in the back of my escape, so to follow the law i have to put my 6 year old in the cargo area instead of just putting her in the back seat with no booster seat. So we just take the van if all 3 kids go with us.

 

I love everything about my broncos. They are extremely tough, reliable, capable, and easy to park. My 96 has given me 235,000 trouble free miles so far and still looks and feels new.

 

In 1983 I bought a new Bronco XLT as a family ski wagon. I hated putting on chains. My wife had bugged me over the years to get her a four door station wagon and, as an employee of a Ford subsidiary, I dutifully did that. First it was a '72 Gran Torino wagon, then she wanted something small so I bought her a '74 Pinto Squire. With two little kids that didn't work out so I went to an '81 Mercury Zephyr Villager wagon. I hated them all. I finally got the '83 Bronco and the wife promptly claimed it. When it wasn't on family vacations it was her daily driver. She was a little gal, so driving that Bronco gave her the feeling of power. When she was done with it, I confiscated it for a work vehicle in '92 as we had started a family business. Next it became my daughter's high school car and she used it for about five years. I sold it in 2000, after 17 years of happy ownership and over the objections of my wife, son, daughter and my two nieces. I started missing the old brute immediately after that. Two months ago I bought a '95 XLT that had the larger 5.8L engine, power door windows and automatic hubs. Those were all things I had wished I had on the '83. They're going to have to pry this one out of my dead fists. I've already had two of my grandkids in the beast and they love it as much as their mom did.

 

I bought my '79 Bronco two years ago in California when Uncle Sam sent me out there for work for a few months. It was clean, rust free and overall in very good shape. My wife flew out from the East Coast, we both took 2 weeks leave from work and we drove it cross country. Yup, drove a '79 Bronco I owned for a month cross country. Of course, I was living in a hotel and had no tools either. I took it to a local mechanic to look it over, had him fix a couple of minor things and drove it with a case of oil since the rear main was leaking pretty badly. Every time I put fuel in it I added oil. Oh, and the fuel gauge didn't really work, the radio didn't work and the A/C didn't work either. We went to the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Las Vegas, El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, etc. It was amazing, such a fun trip. Those are some memories we'll never forget.


This picture is at the Sinclair gas station by Lake Meade and the Hoover Dam.

 

Whats not to love about them. Had mine 12 years and nearly rebuilt most everything on it.

 

It could probably use an SAS though!

 

 

Hear hear!

 

My Bronco passion goes back to the Centurion my uncle bought brand new. His competitive brother bought a Southern Comfort Suburban in response. My Brother in law had a beautiful 1996 Eddie Bauer from new. My step father has had his 1990 Eddie Bauer for over 10 years. My Bronco was actually my mother's "Winter Golf Cart" for her mountain house for 2 years before she traded me for my F-150. Now that I actually get to drive a Bronco every day I completely get it. Compared to my F-150, especially daily driving in ATL, it is like driving a Miata. The closest easy comparison I can come up with is a lifted Mustang. The two tone white/blue still makes people freak out when they first see you. I am not to keen on the retro design of the new one, but if it truly is a 2 door with larger dimensions than a wrangler, I will be standing outside the dealership like people use to buy concert tickets the first day orders will be taken.

 

This might sound nuts but I love my Bronco because of the feeling it gives me when I drive her, what it represents (to me.) It started when I was a kid, I grew up in a bad neighborhood in East Los Angeles so I wasn't allowed to do much because "the neighborhood is bad, your a girl, we don't have money, etc." anyway. We had a neighbor who would get picked up by a friend in a Black Bronco, always had it's top off, music was always blaring, I can still remember what it looked like to me .... FREEDOM! The guy would drive up, honk and our neighbor would run out, jump in the truck, and take off. I never knew where they went, or what they did but man in my head they where having fun. I saw my baby sitting on someones front yard with a for sale sign, and I drove by the sellers house religiously for 4 months!!!! Every time I saw her she put a smile on my face. I saw my self sitting in the front steps of my mothers house just day dreaming about all the fun stuff these people where doing. I bough it!!! The man who sold it to me told me it wasn't in the best shape, that I would need to work on it and gave me the to do list ... when he saw I wasn't backing out he asked me why I was buying it and I told him " .... it's a feeling." LOL I am sure he though I was nuts, but every single time I see her, I drive her, work on her man you can't take the dumb grin off my face!!!!! The best thing is that now when my girls ride in it they can't take the dumb grin off of their faces either!!!!

 

Wow, MAL1978, that post brought a tear to my eye! I have loved Broncos for much the same reason since I was very little. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and the nearest kid was over a half hour away. About 15 minutes away was nearest "neighbor" and they were old enough to have seen the invention of dirt. We had work trucks. Period. There was no such thing as fun and Broncos were just ridiculous. Now I still own and have a lot of love for my CrewCab Duallys but that short chassis and being able to pull the top off and have (shhh, don't let my parents hear), fun in a vehicle is a pretty unique thing to me. There was a guy (quite a lot older than me) that had a solid black, inside and out, '79. It had a lot of work done to it and sounded amazing (460 truck). I would see Todd take off in his and in my imagination he may as well have been slaying dragons. Cool didn't even cover it. But whatever he was doing he had a couple friends in there and they were free to go wherever they wanted to on or off road. I didn't get my first Bronco until I had been married for a few years and even then I bought a very rusty '80 entirely for the chassis. It was completely stock and mechanically sound but whoo, that body was rusty rusty rusty. Perfect for a donor truck right? I drove it home (kind of loving every minute and experiencing the cool I knew was there all along regardless of what it looked like) and my wife asked me what it cost to tag/insure. I told her $0.00 because I wasn't planning to do so at all. I planned to cut the body off and start a completely different build. She convinced me to tag/insure it so we could drive it for a few months until the build was really ready. That was a decade ago, she drove it for 6 of those years back and forth to work and I have done the same off and on. Both of my daughters loved it, heck even the dog loved it. As soon as the snow falls my wife asks me if the Bronco is ready (knowing full well it is) and we go driving backroads that I once thought were "lonely" but now feel much more like they're just "private" as we drive along enjoying the view and talking. It is every bit as awesome as I had imagined as a little kid, and that's saying something, I have a heck of an imagination. Since then, I bought an '82 that my younger daughter drives and a '90 that is my daily driver. BTW - in the years my wife drove the '80 daily, there was a pristine Explorer Limited sitting in the garage. She only let the Bronco slip to second place when I got her Excursion. Now, she drives the Bronco only in the winter to keep her X shiny and clean. My daughters still ask to borrow the Broncos to take their friends out and the rusty old '80 is always taken first.

 

DOOD95 I wish there was a like button on posts!!! You know, my kids made fun of me when I wrote my post because they said I was getting emotional about a car. Well I read your post to them and they got it. I can't wait for them to get old enough to drive it!!! Thank you for your post!!!!

1978 Ford Bronco 4X4 351 C

 

MAL1978 Thank you, I'm flattered. Now, in your daughters' defense, I would never have thought I would have posted my message until I had read yours and was genuinely moved by kind of a kindred idea there. I'm glad your girls are enjoying it and maybe you can warn your girls as I have mine that they're just a few short years away from being where I am and that means I am just a few short years past being where they are. I was a kid and thought I was too cool for such things not too long ago at all. Then you get to watch "the face" where they try to act like they're not disturbed by that. My girls are 20 & 22, the younger one brought the '82 up to me today with all the oil change supplies in the back so I could service it over my lunch hour at work. Kids... Bless you guys, be safe and start looking for a couple more reasonably priced examples, there might be some girls trying to talk you out of yours soon otherwise...