Ford’s first-gen Bronco is a coveted car. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe example attempts to prove that if some is good then more will be better. We’ll see if this extra-long Bronco actually comes up short, price-wise.
Yenko, yenko, bo-benko, banana-fana fo-fenko fee-fy-mo-menko, YENKO! Yeah, yesterday’s 1972 Chevy Nova wasn’t a real Yenko, I know. It was just one wearing an off-brand edition of that racer/modder’s brand. It’s hard to say whether that fact or the car’s lack of louvers was the greater implied offence, but in the end it fell in a 63-percent Crack Pipe loss. That’s just how the Yenko crumbles. Also, enough with the louvers!
Hey, who here likes off-roading? You know, living outside the boundaries of what the construct of society says is where you should drive and where it’s verboten? If so then check out this 1977 Ford Bronco. Or don’t, I mean, I’m pretty easy.
The first thing you’ll notice about this Bronco is that the proportions are a bit off. It’s like living your entire life knowing only Terriers and then suddenly discovering Dachshunds. What the fu…
Yes, this Bronco has been stretched between the axles, so much so that it takes almost an entire second door (the hinges are still showing) to fill the gap on each side. Fat fender flares, a seemingly unnecessary hood bulge, and bull bars accentuate the unique nature of the beast.
Also adding to the mix is a substantial clearing out of the plumbing department at the local home center as this truck has had more pipe laid in it than the Bang Bus. The interior—if you can call the open tub passenger compartment such—features a family cage, while under the hood there’s structural support as well. It’s either that or the world’s most Rube Goldberg exhaust system ever conceived.
Along with the tubing lives a Ford 302, and that engine looks appreciably stock. Behind that sits a C4 three-speed slusher and of course all four wheels are powered. The truck sits high on a four-link rear and extended front suspension. Jounce is controlled by way of remote reservoir shocks that look a little wonky in their application. In fact, everything looks to be just “put out there” on this truck.
Jump behind the wheel however, and you’ll find some things missing. The ad notes custom gauges but there doesn’t seem to be a tach or speedo among them. There is a radio, which is locked away in the center armrest, but this thing must be noisier than a frat-house crapper so why bother? There are four seats—well, two buckets and a bench—and those look like they’re out of something a lot later than this ’77, but I can’t place them from the awkward pictures.
Then there’s the odd dimensions. The seller says that the “Wheelbase Has Been Stretched Unlike Any Other Bronco” but doesn’t explain how that was accomplished. Was the ladder frame cut and re-welded with spacers in between? Is it actually an F-150 frame with a stretched Bronco body on top? Was it the third wish made of a lamp-dwelling genie who heard “Bronc” instead of “dork?” Who knows?
All I know is that I’ve never seen a Bronco like this before and I’m intrigued. It looks to have decent approach and departure angles as well as an ample break-over. The truck’s obviously not a candidate for daily driver duty, nor is it for the faint of heart or strict traditionalists. Who is it for then? Well, maybe you. After all, I don’t really know you. Maybe this is what your life has been leading up to all these years.
If that’s the case, then would you pony up $20,000 to make this extended cut Bronco a part of your life? That’s the price, and it’s now time to decide if its in fact worth it. What do you think, could this custom Bronco command that kind of cash? Or, is that, like the truck, a stretch?
You decide!
Ventura, CA Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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