I drove a brand new first generation Ford Bronco when it was first introduced in late 1965.

By virtue of living across the street from the Leatherman Brother’s Ford dealership in Albion Indiana, and being a classmate of Duane Leatherman (the owners’ son and nephew), I got to be Leatherman’s unofficial (and unpaid) lot-boy.  I washed cars, swept out the shop, and stood in the background while they built a dirt track race car that was used to help promote their brand. 

There was a junkyard behind the showroom that was full of cars in various stages of completeness.  Most were non-running vehicles that provided inexpensive repair parts for the customers with older cars and trucks.  I remember assisting the body shop tech with the harvest of some sheet metal to repair the tailgate on a Ranchero.

A few of the cars in the junkyard were still drivable but were in such bad shape as to be unsellable as used cars.  Duane and I were excited to find these rare cars as we would race them through the junkyard until they broke down or were needed for parts.  No seatbelts, no airbags, and unpadded dashboards made of steel.  But the risks were actually low as these worn out cars rarely could exceed 30 miles per hour and the dirt path that looped the junkyard was short enough we could never get going too fast anyway.  But the thrill of driving these old cars came mostly from the fact that Duane and I were both just 14 years old and did not yet have our drivers licenses. 

One of the new cars that I had to drive to the wash bay, wash, and return to the lineup near the street was the  then-new Bronco.  This was late 1965 when the Bronco’s first model year (1966) was shipped to dealers.  It was a pale blue color with a white roof.  The color is now called Heritage Blue and is available on the 2023 Heritage Limited Edition Bronco.   With a three speed manual transmission and an in-line six cylinder engine, the 1966 Bronco  had a sticker price of $2,337.   (The average sale price of a fully restored 1966 Bronco over the last 5 years has been just under $70,000.)

So why is my nostalgic trip back to Leatherman’s focused on the Bronco?  Yesterday, finally, we bought a new 2023 Bronco.   “Finally” as we had paid the $100 reservation fee, configured our future Bronco, and put ourselves on the waiting list for a new Bronco in July of 2020.  Early in 2021 we received an email from Ford letting us know our name was approaching the top of the waiting list and it was time to visit our dealer and order our Bronco.  But instead we asked for our deposit back.  The last half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 were solidly in some of the most uncertain times of the Covid pandemic.  We decided that as we only wanted a new car, but didn’t really need a new car, it would be more appropriate to wait until things were more certain in the world.  

In 2022, as the SUV the Bronco was intended to replace became increasingly annoying, we let our local Ford dealer know that we were back in the market, but never heard from them.  In mid-2023 I started casually and occasionally looking at the Bronco inventory for local dealers on Ford.com.  Then just after Thanksgiving, after months of not finding the Bronco we wanted anywhere in the US , it showed that a Bronco matching our configuration had arrived at a nearby dealer.  Too good to be true, it was the identical configuration we had chosen in 2020.  Same two-door model,  color, drive-train and options.  We scheduled a test drive for the next Saturday, thinking that in the meantime we would receive word that someone else had bought the Bronco. Saturday arrived.  We arrived at the dealer.  The Bronco was there and we confirmed it was the exact model we wanted.  My wife Carrie Lynn confirmed that the cargo space was adequate and that the rear seats folded flat.  Failing at either would have been a deal-killer. I confirmed that it had heated seats; we live in Michigan. We went on a test drive.  To that point we had not even sat in a new Bronco. Then we drove a bigger more expensive Bronco, just to make sure we weren’t missing anything.  We weren’t.  We came home with the one we went to look at.

Carrie Lynn wants you know that while she agrees we needed a new car, she never would have chosen a Bronco had it not been for my begging.  After the test drive she did, however decide she really likes the Bronco and certainly enjoyed doing donuts in an empty church parking lot when it was her turn on the test drive.