For those of you too impatient to wait for the next horsey Ford, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Bronco is a nice blast from the past to tide you over. However, will this clean truck’s price have your enthusiasm ebbing?
Last Friday’s 1987 Porsche 944 was confusingly offered up through a convoluted and somewhat sketchy manner. Its Craigslist ad was from what appeared to be a consignment shop, and that was for a dealer whose address pointed to a dirt road on Google Maps and whose Facebook page indicated that they were going out of business. That’s generally how beguiled prospects are lured to their demise in cookie-cutter plotted horror movies about inbred cannibal families in the fly-over states.
That being said, fully 60% of you thought that Porsche’s price was fully worth the off chance of ending up as a Hungry Man meal for some catsup-carrying freak who uses cheap Porsches as lunch bait.
I am often amazed at the vast number of different models that all existed at the same time. Take for example Friday’s Porsche. That car was first sold in 1987, the exact same year as today’s Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer, and I can think of no greater polar opposites than those two. It’s almost like discovering that dinosaurs and cave people lived together at the same time in some non-Fred Flintstones universe. It blows my mind.
It’s not that the Porsche was some cutting edge future-state car and the Bronco was a beast from the dawn of the Automotive age. You could, in trace both models’ lineage directly back to the early ‘80s.
The 1987 Bronco was the first year of the model’s fourth generation but that was an evolution of the third. The basic structure—two doors, removable cap, body-on-frame design on a shortened F150 chassis—all remained from its predecessor. What was different was a new more-aero front end with flush headlamps in place of the previous model’s sealed beams. The ’87 also received an optional 4WD system that could be activated by a dashboard button. Fancy!
This one is made fancy not by its drivetrain actuation but by the fact that it carries the Eddie Bauer trim. That meant two-tone paint and front seats with trees embroidered into the backrests. These also came with pretty much all the XLT package options to be had, and hence were pretty swank for an ‘80s truck.
Motivational force here is provided by a 185-bhp, EFI 302 V8 and AOD four-speed automatic. 4WD underpins it all, and the truck rolls on its factory wheels.
In fact, according to the ad, damn-near everything on this truck is factory original right down to the radio and spare tire cover. What’s remarkable about that is the truck’s current condition, which—at least in the pics—comes across as extremely nice.
There’s 144,000 miles on the clock and everything is said to be in working order. That makes it a time capsule, but not everything is old school here. The ad notes—and provided the receipts for—a buttload of mechanical work having been done in the last two years, including the rebuilding of both the transmission and the front end. The fuel system has been similarly refreshed. The paint is apparently two-years new as well, which would explain the white trim in place of the standard Eddie Bauer beige.
Why would you spend all that money on an old truck just to sell it two years later? The seller has a very reasonable and compelling answer to that question. It seems that the truck was originally bought for the seller’s son, and all the work that went into it was to give the 17-year old driver a safe and reasonably reliable ride.
The only factor missing from that equation was apparently common sense as the kid was dinged with a DUI. The sale is to recoup some of the money put into the truck and to serve as a lesson for the tippling teen. In contrast to the driver’s record, the title and Virginia inspection record for the truck are both clean.
The asking price for the Bronco is $7,900 and I’m expecting that’s not going to go toward any celebratory champagne upon its eventual sale, at least not for Johnny Walker Jr.
What’s your take on this tidy truck and that $7,900 price? Does that seem like a deal to get your Bronco on? Or, does that price have you saying you’ll just wait and see what the next Bronco brings?
You decide!
Washington DC Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Cash Rewards for the hookup!
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