i love this car.. many many years ago my dad and i were driving down the road, i think we were going fishing, but i don’t remember for sure (and it isn’t really relevant to this story) and we drove past an apartment complex with a 1969 Ford Bronco parked out front, it was a metallic purple with sort of a silvery shimmer around the wheel wells.
we both remarked that we would love to have an old bronco, dad had one when i was very little and i don’t remember it but remember seeing pictures of it. Broncos have always been a favorite of mine.
so we went on to do whatever it was.. fishing, hunting, maybe just going to get a bite to eat and as we came back through past the apartments dad says, ‘i wonder if they would sell that bronco’ so i suggested we stop and i would go ask around in the building and see if the owner would sell. of course it didn’t have a for sale sign or any indication that it had been abandoned, rather it looked as if someone was in the process of fixing it up.
so anyway up to the first convenient doorway i went and gave a quick knock, by now hoping no one would actually answer because i was sure they were going to think i was a wacko and run me off :). lo and behold the first door is answered by a young man, probably about my age at the time (early 20s). i ask if he knows who the Bronco belongs to and he admits it is his, so i ask if he would be interested in selling it, that my dad and i were very interested in taking it off his hands. fate was working overtime that afternoon as it turns out. he had just gotten engaged and his fiance wanted the Bronco gone. so he came out and haggled with dad a bit and a few days later we were the proud owners of one purple Bronco. it served us well over the years and finally moved back to Missouri with my parents when they headed back ‘home’. it served a few more years there but time took its toll and now she decorates the side yard at their house. as my mom mentions in a blog of her own, Betsy as we called her (the bronco, not mom) will be one of the first recipients of a makeover if we ever win the lottery.