Big Bronco With Coyote Power Goes for Insane Price at Auction

By John Coyle - July 13, 2021

This 1979 Ford Bronco is an absolutely amazing build, but it came with an equally amazing price tag.

First off, I want to say I think this 1979 Bronco restomod is a super-cool rig. While I’ve never liked the Big Bronco as much as the first-gen model, it’s a good looking machine with classic style and fantastic capabilities. The attention to detail on this build is also impressive, as there isn’t a nut or bolt here which hasn’t been tweaked, tuned, and buffed to a high luster. But honestly, I think the fact that it recently sold for an eye-watering $213,000 on Bring a Trailer is just bonkers crazy.

With a lofty figure like that, this baby is treading into ICON territory, and while Jonathan Ward’s creations are also wildly expensive, they come with a cache that an independent shop just doesn’t have. Ward and his crew are to the Ford Bronco what Singer is to the Porsche 911, and if a hyper-custom build is actually going to appreciate in the future, that’s the kind of pedigree it’s going to need. What makes the story of this Bronco even more insane? The person who commissioned the build actually lost $50,000 on the deal, and there are recipes to prove it.

That said, let’s take a look at what the new owner got for their money. As the title of this post suggests, the stock powerplant has been swapped for an unspecified 5.0-liter Coyote engine, which means it’s pumping out at least 360 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque. But you can probably bet it’s packing more than that. And while the shift lever in the pics makes it look like it’s a manual, the mighty mill is actually mated to a 6R80 six-speed automatic. An Atlas two-speed transfer case and 9″ Ford rear end flesh out the rest of the drivetrain, and Wilwood four-wheel disc brakes ensure it’ll come to a halt quickly.

Everything else looks impressively stock here, which in my opinion, is the best way to do a restomod. Though paint has been refreshed, this is the original Dark Jade, and the frame was powder-coated, so even when it’s on a rack, this machine is going to sparkle. The interior has been fully redone, though lots of care has been taken to make it look factory-fresh. For example, the new-school stereo is hidden behind the kind of blanking plate you’d see in the dash if the truck had been ordered sans radio.

Overall, this is an amazing piece of work, and I don’t want to seem like I’m telling anyone how to spend their money — especially when it seems like they have piles and piles of it to blow. It’s just seeing custom rigs fetching prices like this is almost disorienting. That said, let me know what you’d build if you had unlimited funds. I’d definitely go for a carbon-bodied Shelby GT500CR with a GT350R motor under the hood — then laugh when some random writer on the internet called me crazy.

Photos: Bring a Trailer