For Fan Car Friday this week we bring you Rob and his reborn ’71 Ford Bronco Half-Cab.  Fan Car Friday is a segment where we want to share with the world the automobiles that our fans have. We have absolutely no affiliation/relationship with the cars, the build or the owners. This post was made with written consent from the owner.

“1971 Ford Bronco Half-Cab. It’s been in the family for 45 years. This truck was used to check crops during bad weather conditions in Baca County, Colorado. When it was “off-duty” it sat out in the elements with the other farm equipment, enduring decades of blazing sun, heat, Golf all-size hail (and larger), rain/snow/ice and blowing dust. My wife Toni, learned to drive a stick shift in it. The undercarriage was so caked with native sandy mud that after it was power washed 6 times and we had our first view of an absolutely pristine undercarriage. The mud had preserved all of the exposed metal. There was virtually no rust, aside from surface rust here and there. We thought it was miraculous!

It had a body-off restoration in 2015. Nearly all of the original parts were reused during the process. The 302 V8 had 39,xxx original miles. All major components are original to the vehicle. Restoration was performed by Joe Barber, Barber Auto Sales, St. Joseph, Missouri. We love our Bronco!

Most of the stories reside in the mind of my wife’s father. I’ve tried to pull some of that from him since we bought the Bronco from him. He is almost 84 years old now.

A memory of mine: he would to convert an old car hood to a sled and pulled my girls when they were little, through the prairie covered snow behind the Bronco. They would take off and the girls would squeal for miles.

My in-laws life was dry-land farming in one of the driest counties in Colorado. Where they lived was once part of the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. Their’s was a life of solitude, mostly. I think the Bronco was the first and only four wheel drive vehicle they ever had.

FYI: A great book about the Dust Bowl us entitled, “The Worst Hard Time,” by Timothy Egan. Easy read, hard to put down.”

Before restoration

The Ford Bronco is a model line of SUVs that were manufactured and marketed by Ford from 1965 to 1996. After the first generation of the Bronco was introduced as a competitor to compact SUVs (including the Jeep CJ-5 and International Harvester Scout), the succeeding four generations of the Bronco were full-size SUVs, competing against the Chevrolet K5 Blazer and Dodge Ramcharger. The first Bronco was assembled using its own chassis, while the full-size Bronco was derived from the Ford F-Series (F-100, later F-150) pickup truck; all Broncos were produced with four-wheel drive powertrains.

The Ford Bronco was withdrawn from the Ford light-truck model line following declining demand for two-door SUVs. For the 1997 model year, Ford replaced the Bronco with the Ford Expedition, a four-door SUV based on the F-150 (the later Ford Excursion was based on the Ford F-250 Super Duty).

From 1965 to 1996, Broncos were produced at Ford’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, Michigan. In 2017, Ford announced the reintroduction of the Ford Bronco as a mid-size SUV (derived from the Ford Ranger) as a 2021 model; manufacturing is to return to Michigan Assembly.

The idea behind the Bronco began with Ford product manager Donald N. Frey (who also conceived the Ford Mustang) and engineered by Ford engineer Paul G. Axelrad, with Lee Iacocca approving the model for production. Developed as an off-road vehicle (ORV), the Bronco was intended as a competitor for the Jeep CJ-5 and International Harvester Scout. Today a compact SUV in terms of size, Ford marketing shows a very early example of promoting a civilian off-roader as a “Sports Utility” (the two-door pickup version).

Initially selling well, following the introduction of the Chevrolet Blazer, Jeep Cherokee, and International Scout II (from 1969 to 1974), demand shifted towards SUVs with better on-road capability, leading to a decline in demand for the Bronco.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Bronco

Want your car to be featured as one of our Fan Car Friday’s post? Know somebody that might?  Use the contact link at the bottom and email us a couple of photos as well as your contact information and your vehicle could be featured on an upcoming Friday post.  Please make sure to put FAN CAR in the subject heading.