Boss Bronco Reappears After 45 Years
Ford’s one-off high-performance Boss Bronco was slated to be crushed. But somehow, it managed to survive!
When Gateway Bronco rolled into last year’s Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction with a pair of special Broncos tucked away in their booth, they did so with little fanfare. And you really can’t blame folks for overlooking these offerings. After all, not many people had ever heard of a Boss Bronco, and probably thought is was some kind of custom-built ride. But they were very, very wrong.
Seeing a first-gen Bronco with flared fenders, a hood scoop, and big tires is nothing new, after all. But the Boss Bronco is, in fact, a real-deal 1969 Ford prototype. An idea for a high-performance version of their venerable off-roader, packing a Shelby Mustang GT350-derived 351 V8. The project came together under the supervision of former Ford boss Bunkie Knudsen and off-road racer Bill Stroppe at Ford’s Kar-Kraft workshop.
The team converted the innocuous Bronco into a Boss Bronco in a mere nine days. Interestingly enough, in addition to a slew of suspension upgrades, this prototype became the first Bronco ever built with an automatic (C4) transmission.
With deep 4.11:1 gears in both differentials, we’re guessing it got off the line just fine. Throw in aircraft-grade bolts and the full array of Stroppe parts, and you’ve got perhaps the ultimate Bronco. The idea was to sell this Raptor predecessor to customers as a total performance and appearance package.
Sadly, that never happened. Lee Iacocca fired Knudsen after only 18 months on the job. And with that, the Boss Bronco project was no more. Even worse, the prototype was slated to be destroyed. But somehow, after Kar-Kraft shut down, the hi-po SUV disappeared. For 45 years, no one knew where it had gone. But while working on a new book, an author by the name of Wes Eisenchenk started researching Kar-Kraft VIN numbers through the DMV database.
Amazingly enough, this crumb trail led to the discovery that the Boss Bronco had just recently sold on eBay. He managed to buy the truck himself, then sold it to his good friend, the owner of Gateway Bronco. And even more amazingly, the Boss Bronco is completely original save for one repaint. We’re just glad that someone was able to track it down so we could hear this amazing story!
