Completely agree.
My first 4 vehicles, all in the 1990s, were square-body Chevys from 1973-1985. Love the look, love that I can work on virtually every inch of them, but they just don't hold a candle to modern reliability or durability. Even a less-reliable modern truck will go 2x the miles before major problems emerge (excepting genuine lemons or major, specific design flaws). Yet, those Chevys today are priced like they're a priceless superior design from a more civilized age.
Unless you've been in "First Generation Ford Bronco World," you don't know what "overpriced" really is, LOL.
I love the look of the 1966 to 1977 Ford Bronco. I love that I can take one completely apart to the last nut and bolt and manage to put it back together correctly. But I'll never have another one, because by any objective standard, they aren't as "cool" as they look.
They eat double-cardan joints on the rear driveshaft like fat kids go through candy. The majority of them had four-wheel drum brakes without power assist, which is okay on stock tires and wheels, but wouldn't stop the vehicle for shit when you slapped some 15 x 8 Jackman wheels shod with 10-15 LT Gates Commandos on it. They didn't get factory power steering or factory automatic transmission until 1973. They never had factory A/C. "Death Wobble" isn't just a Jeep TJ Wrangler thing. The early Bronco is particularly prone to it. There is zero sound insulation, the front seats don't recline, and the back seat doesn't fold or tumble. Many of them, like mine, had manual locking front wheel hubs that were a pain in the ass to engage and disengage, with dials that would refuse to go to the "lock" or "unlock" position when you wanted them to, and they were like that when new. Many of them with the J-pattern transfer case shifter were almost impossible to get out of "4-lo" once you got it in "4-lo". They were prone to vapor-lock from 1973 on. They get about 14 to 15 mpg on the highway.
My dad bought one new in 1973. He ticked every option box and got the 302 V8, automatic transmission, 3.50:1 ring and pinion gears, front and rear limited slip, uprated GVWR, full skid-plate group, aux gas tank, and got the Explorer trim package. The sticker price for it was about the same as a fully-optioned big-block Corvette of that same model year. It wasn't cheap when new and by modern standards, you didn't get a hell of a lot for money. It was a lot of money to spend on a vehicle that only got used for hunting and fishing trips on the weekends. My dad had an Austin-Healey 100-6 that he drove to work in. Our "family car" was a '71 Dodge Charger with a 383 V8. If he wasn't in to hunting and fishing, that Bronco was something he could have happily lived without.
By the time it got to 160,000 miles, it was on it's second transmission, and the 302 V8 was past ready for a complete overhaul. That was in 1992. I bought it from my dad, who didn't want to sell it to me because it needed a new engine. He finally relented, feeling sorry for me over the problems I had with my rare 1989 short-wheelbase Isuzu Trooper RS, which was the biggest piece of rolling shit I ever owned, and prompted me to put a license plate frame on my '92 LX 5.0 Mustang that read "Japanese Cars Suck." Of course, they don't all suck, but my Isuzu Trooper absolutely did.
"Well, they must be awesome off-pavement, right"? You might ask.
The un-emotional reality is that an early Bronco with fenders cut to take 10-15 LT / 31 X 10.50-15 tires won't go anywhere I can't get to in a bone-stock Ford GPW / Willys MB or CJ-2A.
I'll go even farther and say that a Bronco II with a 2.9L EFI engine isn't just vastly superior on paved roads, but is ALSO vastly superior on Forest Service and BLM trails. That opinion is massively un-popular, but it is based on experience. With the biggest tires you can fit on each, a Bronco II shits all over an early Bronco on the trail. The Bronco II has a tighter turning radius. Slap 235 / 75 15 BFG AT or MT tires on a Bronco II's stock wheels, and you'll have more ground clearance under the differentials than an early Bronco running 31 x 10.50 rubber does. When new, some Bronco II's could run 30 x 9.50 tires and with those, you'd have more clearance under the diffs than an early Bronco on "thirty ones" has. The big difference, through, is that a Bronco II has more wheel travel, front and rear, than an early Bronco has, and the droop compliance on the front TTB of the Bronco II is vastly superior to that of the early Bronco.
My dad and all of my maternal and paternal uncles but one had first generation Broncos. Our family hunting and fishing camps looked like an early Bronco convention. The draw for them was that it was better on pavement than a stock CJ Jeep was, would go where a stock CJ Jeep could off-pavement, but carry a lot more stuff. They vowed to keep their early Broncos forever once the '78 Bronco came out.
Then, Ford shocked them all when they launched the Bronco II. They came to the same conclusion I did from driving both on "Most Difficult" Forest Service and BLM trails: The Bronco II wasn't just vastly superior on pavement, but was better on the trail, too. My dad took three model years to see the light, but bought a new Bronco II in 1986. He held onto it for 25 years, selling it with 290,000 miles on it. I know that guy who bought it. He's still using it with over 325,000 miles on it.
Another vehicle that makes for a vastly better Early Bronco than an Early Bronco does is the Jeep XJ Cherokee.
I know this from first-hand, practical experience, too. I had my Bronco insured for $40,000.00, using the same outfit I formerly used for my AAR 'Cuda that I once had. About two weeks into my new insurance policy, a tractor-trailer rig T-boned my parked Bronco and totaled it.
I didn't even consider finding another Bronco to replace mine with. A friend of mine bought a 2DR XJ with the H.O. inline-6 and a manual transmission. We put a mild lift on it so he could run 31 x 10.50 15 tires on it. I got sold on it when we went up a trail with a steep, soft, loose incline, with deep divots made by people trying to get up it with throttle pedal and open diffs. My friends XJ just crawled up it, with the body so level that the coffee in our cups was scarcely disturbed.
I bought a used XJ from a California franchise dealer. I only had it two weeks. It wouldn't pass California's smog testing when I went to register it, so the dealer had to either fix it or buy it back under CA law and opted to do the latter.
By then, I was earning my keep as a licensed and bonded hunting and fishing guide and writing for a few periodicals. I worked a deal with area Land Rover dealers to do off-pavement driving tuition and lead owners on off-pavement trips. Not being a Land Rover owner myself, one of the dealers let me use their '96 Defender 90, which is unquestionably superior to an early Bronco, both on pavement and off. The Defender 90 was so damn good on the trail that it was a yawn-fest to drive. You have to have your head firmly planted up your backside to get one of those things to "sky" tires at opposite corners. The level of suspension travel, articulation, and droop compliance is light-years ahead of an early Bronco.
Yet, people make businesses out of buying clapped out Broncos for 40K, resto-modding them, and selling them on for 125K. Today, 1966 to 1977 Broncos are "priced like they're a priceless superior design from a more civilized age" It's crazy.
That's what swapping logic for emotional reasoning leads to. Emotion might tell you an old early Bronco is cool. Logic tells you an XJ or a TJ or a live-axle Defender 90 is superior on-pavement and off and that a 1966 to 1977 Bronco won't do one thing at stock ride height that a CJ Jeep at stock ride height can't also do on the trail.
