It’s Trade-In Tuesday today, and boy do I have an exciting one this time: It’s a restomodded 1968 Ford Bronco with a 465 horsepower 5.0-liter Coyote V8 under the hood feeding a 10-speed automatic. It’s worth over $200,000, and I’m here to tell you if I think it’s actually worth that.
I’m not entirely sure who traded in this Ford Bronco restomodded by Pensacola, Florida-based Velocity Restorations, nor do I know what they traded it in for, but something tells me it wasn’t a Ford Escape.
Vintage Ford Broncos like this one have become the “it cars” of the über-elite, more so than any new Ferrari or Lamborghini or Porsche. With restomodded versions done up by companies like Icon, Velocity, Highline Classics, and Gateway, standard ’60s-era Broncos have become unobtainium on the used car market. Because when people like LeBron James are driving these machines, that tells you they’re in high demand:
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Just look at Classics.com’s absolutely bonkers chart of 1968 Ford Bronco sale prices. Put your cursor in the white and move it left to right; you’ll see that in the last five years, average values went from $39,000 to $65,000! That’s a 67% increase in value over just five years! And I bet these things were selling in the teens not too long before that.
Of course, even $65,000 is chump change when we’re talking about restomodded classic Broncos. Velocity’s Signature Series Broncos start at $249,900!:
That gets you a 465 horsepower Coyote V8 engine mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission, yielding a claimed 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds. But here’s the thing about these Broncos: They’re valuable not just because they look so cool, but also because no two are the same — these are bespoke machines.
The vehicle that I drove was, I think, a “Ranger Edition,” which gives it a white grille, unique graphics, and special interior trim — all for the low, low price of $19,000, or a base-spec Mitsubishi Mirage after taxes and fees.
There are all sorts of seat options:
The upgrades are insanely expensive given that you’ve already dropped a quarter mil. You want a hard top? $28,500. A soft top? $1,800. A roll cage? $6,600. A freaking wet sand and polish?! Why am I paying extra for that? And why is it $5,500? Chrome beltline trim is $2,500:
I do think the $4,800 frame seems like a good deal. It’s a custom frame to replace the weak 50 year-old C-channel one that came from the factory:
As for interior features that you’d expect on pretty much any modern new car? They’re not cheap. Heated seats are $2,200, Apple Carpaly & Android Auto? $2,200. A backup camera is $2,500:
Here’s a $3,500 “Billet Interior Appearance Package”:
Velocity has a bunch of Broncos already built, ready to ship. They go for between about $215,000 and $275,000. Here’s a look at a couple:
My god that’s pricey. Why wasn’t I nervous driving this trade-in? I should have been; here, have a watch:
The beautiful machine was parked just outside of Galpin Premier, where The Autopian’s sister-company sells Aston Martins, Land Rovers, Jaguars, Lotus cars, and a bunch of other swank-mobiles.
My first impression was that it is far, far better built than any 1960s-era Ford. The doors latch more solidly, the paint is way nicer, the interior fit and finish are on a different level — it’s a clearly much-improved machine from a stock Bronco from a build-quality standpoint. But then, you’d hope so given the price. Here’s me amazed by how solid that rear tailgate feels when latched:
Upon entering the Bronco, I noted that the shifter is really, really satisfying to use, and that’s a hard thing to pull off in a column shifter. Column shifters tend to be sloppy, but not this one — it feels almost bolt-action. I haven’t shot a lot of rifles in my day, but I still know that that’s the right description for the Velocity Bronco’s shifter.
What I’m most impressed by is the fact that Velocity managed to put so many positions in that column-shifter. Bolted to the 5.0-liter is a 10-speed auto, so being able to shift into all 10 of those gears is nice, though first gear requires an almost 180-degree shift, so move your knees out of the way!
Moving on from that previous paragraph, which was entirely BS, I will note that the tuning of both the 5.0 and the 10-speed was sublime, and that’s something I was concerned about. It’s had enough for an OEM to tune its own transmissions properly, so to see Velocity’s team dial this one in was a pleasant surprise. This thing rips, and it that 10-speed feels like it’s doing everything it can to give that five-oh the best chance of putting a giant smile on your face. You press the pedal, the transmission quickly downshifts, and before you know it there’s a lion under your hood and a jetpack on your tailgate.
I didn’t get to use the four-wheel drive shifters (this thing has a twin-stick Atlas transfer case — top of the line), but look at those nice aluminum knobs — gorgeous. The dash is a little plain (or “understated,” depending upon your perspective), featuring just some basic HVAC knobs, some lighting, and a Bluetooth radio:
On the left side of the steering column on any old Bronco is the speedometer, which didn’t work on my test drive. That’s just as well, though, since it was such a pain in the arse to look at anyway. Plus, I was focused on other things.
Driving through Van Nuys, I can’t say the ride quality was great. With 32-inch mud-terrain tires, a tall stature, a short wheelbase, a leaf-sprung solid rear axle, and a radius-arm front coil-sprung suspension, the Bronco felt solid but definitely agricultural, bouncing me around in my seat as I hit potholes. Still, the steering was nice, the brakes worked well, and the chassis could handle that prodigious power well.
I find those seats to be the highest of quality (they seemed to squeak a bit, but I get that they need to be water resistant given the rooflessness), but nonetheless, I get why these machines cost so much: They combine beauty with speed and aural excitement. It looks good, it goes fast, and it sounds amazing — a dynamic trio.
As I drove this Bronco, I couldn’t help musing that, as expensive as this truck is, it also feels like a more authentic version of a vehicle everyone else is trying to emulate. The new Mercedes G-Wagen, the new Jeep Wrangler, the new Ford Bronco — these are all modern machines trying to emulate the images created by their forebears. This 1968 Bronco is the forebear. It’s the real-deal. And with that real-McCoy-ness come plenty of compromises, but they’re all worth it in order to be behind the wheel of the OG that everyone else is trying to live up to.
Fuel economy is undoubtedly garbage, the ride (as mentioned before) isn’t great, the handling is what you expect of a tall solid axle-equipped SUV on mud-terrains, and honestly, it’s not all that luxurious and could probably get walked off-road by a $50,000 Jeep Wrangler.
I personally don’t understand the pricing on these Broncos given that you can get a V8 manual-transmission equipped Jeep CJ-7 for under $35,000:
Obviously, that AMC 304 is going to be slower than the Coyote Motor, and it’s carbureted, so that’s going to require some maintenance, but hey, here’s a fuel injected CJ-7 with a straight six for just $37 grand:
So yeah, I personally am not into the whole vintage Bronco thing because I think I get a similar feeling driving around an old CJ, especially if I slap a junkyard LS into it. But this is The Autopian, and we don’t kink shame. If you want to spend a quarter mil on an old Bronco instead of, say, a Ferrari or McLaren, I say go for it.
Being behind the wheel of a restomodded Bronco like this, you do feel like an absolute badass. It’s one of the coolest looking SUVs on the road, it sounds incredible, and there really aren’t that many out there. It’s a bit primitive, and in terms of actual value-for-money, a modern Ford Bronco Raptor seems to be a much, much better deal, offering way more off-road capability and comfort. But anyone can get a new Bronco Raptor; a bright orange 1968 Bronco with a snarling V8 is just a little more special. And “special” costs money.
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Images: Velocity Restorations/The Autopian/Bring a Trailer
This is pretty damn cool, but let’s get back to the shitboxes
Something like a 50 mpg Suzuki Samuri with a Prius drive train perhaps?
Prius drive train could be really interesting in a number of different older cars, old “jeeps” (in the generic sense of the word), like an FJ40 for example;
the ability to use the hybrid system as a power supply off road has a lot to like about it…
Or
likewise in old sports cars like in an old MG A or B that (I think) had heavy iron block motors.
Can we get a restomod without the expensive “resto” part?
Like a SWG special that the drivetrain is new but everything is there dent and all, maybe with an EV.
Unfortunately every restored where the classic car body/frame is restored and converted to be an ev has added $40-50k minimum to the project, this is of course unless you are brave enough to take on the conversion to ev yourself, in which case you might only (likely) spend between $20-30k as a minimum
The challenge of course is modern ev production cars are still only been around about 12 years and therefore finding good batteries at reasonable prices would still pose challenge.
I remember seeing one 2 of these (stock, of course) being hauled off to the crusher in the mid 90’s. My old boss kept the Cordoba, but junked the Broncos and gave his niece a Chevette. He was (and still is) an interesting guy.
The amount of money people will pay to basically cosplay a modern jeep as a 60’s vehicle is pretty crazy.
One of my coworkers had an Icon Bronco with a Coyote + MT about 10 years ago… I believe it was stored in the company’s parking deck. (He probably had his home garage full of other nice cars.)
I had a chance to buy one of these in the mid 90s for like a thousand bucks. It was not in good shape, and broke ass 16yo me passed on it.
Sigh…
Don’t feel bad, it sounds like you made the right decision.
Oh it was for sure the right decision. I could have never afforded to get it reliable and even if I had bought it it would have been sold decades ago at this point. Way before these got stupid valuable.
In my neighborhood a dude/dudette has a restored, bog standard old Bronco of this vintage complete with skinny 1960s tires just parked out on the street under a car cover. I always wonder why he doesn’t put it in a garage somewhere or rent a storage unit.
“[S]tandard ’60s-era Broncos have become unobtainium on the used car market. Because when people like LeBron James are driving these machines, that tells you they’re in high demand”
Seems like some of the demand had its beginnings with Keanu Reeves’s character driving one in the 1994 film Speed:
http://imcdb.org/vehicle_1751-Ford-Bronco-U15-1970.html
While suspension of disbelief was indeed requisite for watching and enjoying that film, especially with the utterly improbable jump off the unfinished highway overpass, the scene with Keanu Reeves’s character driving that early Bronco at such high speeds while weaving through LA traffic without flipping or otherwise crashing was simply the most egregious in terms of the aforementioned suspension of belief, lol. Keeping a 1966 GM New Look fishbowl bus at speeds above 50 mph, yes, just maybe, but maintaining control of a 1970 Ford Bronco at high speeds while weaving in such traffic, absolutely not, ha.
I remember watching a documentary on the making of that movie, and the thing that surprised me the most was that they actually did perform that jump in real life!
Of course, the gap in the road wasn’t real, and they edited out the ramp, but the bus did jump!
It’s cool that these exist, but what gets me the most is that for what these cost makes it unfathomable to use one off-road and risk scraping the paint on a tree limb.
These aren’t for off-roading, they’re for bragging about.
I love a good restomod, and this is a nice paint job and swap & tune, but I’m really not seeing where the money’s going here. Good resto, could use a little more mod for the price, in my opinion.
there would appear to be a lot of profit based on the prices. $2200 for heated seats? they rely on ignorant people to be their customers
certainly more than I could/would spend, but I wouldn’t mind doing this with one of my father in law’s Scouts. My plan is to electrify one and LS the other if he ever lets me at them, but I can’t imagine spending a quarter mil on something I actually plan to thrash.
The truck is nuts.
But more importantly, it *is* Friday, right? It’s been a long week, so I’m just checking :).
6-figure Broncos *and* a time warp would be too much.
You are correct, today is Friday. It damn well better be!
Amen
For $200k I would expect the speedometer to work.
I had a plastic toy one of these back in the late 70’s or early 80’s I played with in the sandbox. I guess that’s as close as I will be to owning one of these.
Isn’t calling Galpin a “sister company” a little like calling a castle on the hill a sister residence, when you’re out on the lawn in a tent?
I’m certainly not the target demographic for a restomod (a stunning one, I might add) that costs almost as much as my house, but…they don’t offer a manual option? Surely there are rich people who can still drive a stick.
I guess it’s better than wealthy people making political donations.
Also, how long of a timeline before all old school off-roaders have been snapped up by the rich? 5 years? 10, 15? And how long before it starts happening to other historically affordable classics in large numbers? Curious.
They get snapped up but the snappers are getting older, as well. What’s cool to them probably aren’t lusted after, as much, by folks 15-20 years younger. What’s more likely is people will start lusting after vintage Raptors and Rubican 392s, when the EV mandates kick in/kill ’em.
(For example, how many people are still lusting after late ’40s/early ’50s “classics”, much less the classics from before WW II?)
I’m not so sure, I used to think similarly but the reality is those cars have somewhat stabilized in price, but not many have gone down much their peak. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I… I don’t understand any of this. Why spend $250k on something that is so nice you won’t ever take it off road? Like, sure, it’s capable, but if you’re just driving ON the road, why even get a bronco in the first place? Has anyone EVER seen any of these things on a legit trail, getting dirty with desert pinstriping?
For 250k, you could build one hell of an aircooled Safari 911, and that’s going to be way more fun to drive and get just as many if not more looks than a restomod bronco. I don’t even like safari 911s, I’m just saying I don’t understand the pricing on these things, or why they exist.
I also didn’t know broncos had C channel frames, lol. That’s dumb.
Actually a lot of these older trucks and SUVs had c frames. The 90 K5 Jimmy I had had a C frame same with my current 92 Cummins has a C frame.
If I had the means (my choice would be an Icon Land Cruiser) I’d definitely take it off-road. Clearly at that point I’d have enough f-it money that $250k is no big deal so making repairs, fixing the body, etc. is also no big deal either.
They’re just cool and offer a different image than a similarly prices exotic. Park this next to your theoretical 911, and I’d probably take the Bronco. I’m not a sports car guy but I love classic trucks.
I HAVE seen classic Broncos off-roading, there’s actually a yearly event in Moab where there’s hundreds on the trails, some are serious rock crawlers. Not these resto-mods of course, but still.
There’s an ever-growing segment of the population for which 250k is chump change. For some people, this is the equivalent of a normal person buying a 2,500 beater.
Also, C-channel frames were pretty standard until fairly recently. When the Bronco was new, pretty much only convertible version of hardtop cars had boxed frames. I think the 2024 Tacoma finally got a fully-boxed frame.
That’s my point though. Anyone offroading a Bronco is not going to do so with one this nice, so why does this exist? If it’s too nice to actually go do what the vehicle is good at, it ceases to become useful/usable/relevant.
By that reasoning, pretty much every sportscar/supercar is useless and irrelevant. How many of those are used for their intended purpose?
Like I said, they’re just cool. Whatever floats your boat man, as my grandfather always said, “there’s an ass for every seat”. Clearly there’s a demand, or these companies would not stay in business. I imagine they only need to sell a few a year, and there are plenty of rich people that like to buy toys.
If I was rich 10/10 I’d rather have the Bronco than the equivalently priced Mercedes, Bently, etc.
I knew someone would respond with that analogy, but it is flawed.
Supercars/sports cars are made for driving on the road, which is where they are used. Can you use them to their “full potential”? Probably not without jail time, but you can still enjoy great handling, great acceleration, response, etc.
This thing, without taking it offroad, it just sucks. DT even said it was a literal deathtrap. Every quality that makes something great at offroading makes it sort of terrible on the road.
The supercar analogy is completely apt. There is nothing duller than driving many of today’s high performance cars on the street.
When you are way way below a cars cornering limit, you have no idea if it handles good or not – it just goes where you are pointing with no sense of the cars actual dynamics. And when you have huge acceleration and power, normal road speeds can feel tedious. It’s entirely possible that the Bronco is more fun on the road than most supercars/sports cars because you have to be careful, because it has limits you can feel and test.
Ultimately what makes supercars and restromod off-roaders fun to own and drive is the pageantry and sense of escape they bring to driving 🙂
For $250k and doesn’t have an Atlas twin stick transfer case, I wonder where the money went.
Coyote has no draw for me, as a built 351 has plenty of power to do Bronco things.
Thought my ’76 had a boxed frame.
Do recall that the Bronco II were Cs, and thought that was a cheap ‘Jeep’ thing to do
Just because $250k is a lot of money to you doesn’t mean that it’s a lot of money to the person purchasing this vehicle. It’s not.
This speaks to how clueless Americans are to wealth inequality. The person buying this Bronco isn’t essentially just like you or me with a little bit more money. Not even close. They make our annual salary in a week or a couple of days. Lebron James doesn’t worry about something that’s worth .0001875% of his annual salary.
This. Even Dave Ramsey talks about this, as out of touch as he is on so many other things. Someone like Michael Jordan blowing 50K in an evening sounds excessive, but when you look at the percentage of his wealth it’s like an average person opting to get fries with that.
I think I mentioned this in another comment, for an ever-growing segment of the population, 250K is play money and takes less of a dent out of their pocketbook than the average reader here buying a $2,500 beater.
Re: Lebron James doesn’t worry about something that’s worth .0001875% of his annual salary.
It’s funny you mention LeBron James bc although he presumably has oodles of money, he is also well known to be relatively cautious with how he spends it, a classic example for him is that he still uses the free version of Spotify. And of course this is just one very tiny example.
If I were guessing I would Mr. James (as well as many people with the means) interested, would use a purchase such as this in a tax advantaged way and understandably so.
That’s great to hear but the point is that a few scratches aren’t a big deal to someone who buys $250k resto mods. They’ll just get it repainted.
100% true
He skimps on (mobile) apps. So he can “afford” nice rides 😉
I’m very confused by that options list, what do you even get for the “base” price of 250k????
You seemingly get a base Bronco with a Coyote swap and a paintjob?
When you put it like that, you almost make it sound like a base coyote with a 10 speed doesn’t cost $23k on the pallet.
Old pickup trucks and scouts are next. Jeep wagoneers and Toyota land cruisers have already been done.
I was going to comment this. Wagonmaster and others are doing some amazing Wagoneers, and the ICON FJ-s are insane. I really should pick up an 80-series before those become an “it” car, they’re already expensive enough.
What do you mean “next”? Its now. You can get a dentside F250 from this same restomod company for similar money.
How much is original? WIth new frame etc. it seems like this is more of a low-volume “new” car. Is it only the vin plate that is kept?
As others have said these restomods have destroyed classic car prices. Would I love to have something like this? Sure but since people keep doing things like this to the older cars and ask ridiculous sums of money for them it just brings up the prices of the non-resto’s. Like I wouldn’t mind finding an older 60s or 70s truck to swap in a 12v Cummins but the prices have just sky rocketed these last couple years on older trucks as seeing with these broncos and also with k5’s.
But…. you can have something like this, as DT pointed out, just get a jeep. Same difference, probably more capable. There are plenty of older rust free trucks for sale in the south west. Broncos, yeah, they’re gone, you won’t get one…. but tons of other interesting stuff is sitting there, ready to be built up.
That is probably true. Being from Chicagoland anything clean up here normally cost and arm and a leg my old 90 K5 jimmy and 73 javelin I had both came from out of state one from Washington State and the other from Florida. Even my Cummins was from Wyoming but I have a feeling over time more and more of these older vehicles will be found out and prices will just keep going up. Which I understand as there will be less and less examples but some of the price increases on some of these as shown with these broncos has just been ridiculous.
Pardon the irrelevance but did DT get swole while I wasn’t looking?
It’s just the Autopian T-shirt.
I have two and they do legitimately fit excellently. They make me feel like I’ve been working out.
I have an even more hilarious story about the effect of clothes: I went to a bottle shop I used to go to all the time just after I got the bike last fall.
I was in my leather jacket, walked in, and this lady I have known for a couple years at this point, me probably 10 pounds heavier than the last time I saw her, immediately came around the bar and asked had I been working out, I looked good, etc. She told me was checking me out before she realized who I was.
I guess the moral of the story is, if you’re gonna get fat, dress like a surly biker in leathers. Or buy Autopian swag!
His girlfriend isn’t letting live off of pizza rolls any more.
I’m sure his consumption of shower spaghetti has plummeted dramatically.
Has David been pumping some of his Jeep iron on Muscle Beach again!?!?
A diet of oatmeal and marathon training will offer different results than shower spaghetti and rust particulate inhalation.
Brb, I need to collect a refund from my personal trainer
Wealthy people have totally ruined large swaths of the vintage car market and this is a further example. I live in a wealthy hoity-toity area and up the street starts where all of the obnoxiously rich people live. One house has a whole fleet of super expensive vehicles and one of them is one of these restomod Broncos.
Well, they’re succeeding on making vintage cars unobtainable, we’re already there with houses, so…I guess food’s (meat, probably) next?
Food, water, air…
Whatever you do, do not google rubyglow pineapple. Your dystopian thought is reality.
“Wealthy people have totally ruined large swaths of… EVERYTHING.”.
FIFY.
It got to the point with classic 60s machines, the automakers are licensing the designs to companies to make brand new shells, so you can basically build it from scratch and a lot of places will even let you title it as the year of the design. I know these exist for some years of Mustangs, Camaros, and Chargers. If I was going to build something like this, I’d just buy a new shell.
I suspect that there will be more of this in the future; it seems like easy money for the automakers.
broncs too it’s not a new thing not caused by the restomoding.
What else would have indicated to manufacturers that demand existed other than the prices of old cars going up because they’re being restored or restomodded? People weren’t paying tens of thousands of dollars for junk to stay junk.
The shifter is really P-R-N-D-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1?????
I’m a 1st-gen K5 man myself, but the Broncos are undoubtedly cool.
David then writes the above paragraph was a lie… so no?
Scratch another old truck off the list of vehicles I’ll now never be able to afford to buy and fix up.
They were unaffordable 10 years ago.
they were over priced 10 years ago, now they are just stupid/no respect for money priced.