1968 Ford Bronco - Resampled

Whether parked or flying high through the air, the Early Bronco exudes a coolness few other off-road vehicles achieve. Ryan knew that this Bronco was going to push big power, big tires and big travel. In order to do this he had to reconstruct the Ford from the ground up. Portions of the stock frame have been retained while the majority has been cut, notched and gusseted for strength. The body is made of part fiberglass and part steel where more support was needed. The rollcage (front to back) is made of 4130 chromoly tube and plate. When all of the bodywork was finalized, a fresh coat of British Racing Green paint was laid down. KC Daylighter lights are the chosen weapons for night driving. A Ramsey winch was installed for safety.

This is easily one of the cleanest Broncos we have featured. The interior floor was protected with a full coat of Line-X. Beard Ultra seats have been mounted to the chassis with Crow five-point padded belts.

A slue of Auto Meter gauges cover the aluminum dash giving Hans all necessary info on the trail. A Garmin GPS system provides off-road guidance and a Kenwood race radio is used for communication. An Art Carr shifter is controlling the truck's C6 transmission below. Just in front is a set of twin shift levers controlling the Dana 20 transfer case. All transmission work was done by OC Transmissions out of Costa Mesa, California.

The one thing this truck was missing when Hans took it over was a solid rear end. Wanting nothing but the best for his ride, Hans called Currie Enterprises and picked up a Currie 9-inch rear end. It was purchased complete with 4.56 gears, 35-spline axles, and a Detroit locker.

Under the hood is a '75 Ford 351 Windsor small-block engine pushing 400 lb-ft of torque and 450 horsepower. In order to push all that power the engine has been modified with a Crane cam, World Aluminum heads, JE pistons, B.C Broncos ceramic-coated headers, a Holley carb, and an MSD ignition system. Hans turned to the guys at C&J Engineering to use their old school expertise with Broncos to make the truck purr like a kitten. He tells us without their help the truck would never run so smooth.

As you can see, this truck was purpose built to run the desert. The rear bed space is loaded with two full-size spare tires (one unloaded), dual gas cans, 22-gallon Fuel Safe cell, shovel, Hi-Lift jack, dual Red Top Optima batteries, Nitrogen bottle and ammunition canisters doubling as storage compartments.

The rear suspension pushes 20 inches of wheel travel using custom Deaver leaf springs built to Ryan's specifications. Custom chromoly shock hoops were designed for the King 2.5-inch piggyback shocks.

Moving to the front of the truck we find a custom set of chromoly shock hoops, engine cage, radius arms and Ryan's own Millett dampeners.....

....Shocks include King 2.5-inch dual-rate coilovers and Fox 2.0-inch hydraulic air bumps. Front travel measures 14 inches and total lift height for the vehicle is adjustable from 4 to 6 inches.

What did your company do to commemorate hitting a huge sales number? Oakley went out and bought a Czech Republic BVP-1 Military Tank. This 300hp beast has a top speed of 40 mph, weighs 29,762 pounds, carries a 73mm smooth bore "Sagger" MCLOS wire-guided anti-tank guided missile for defense and will crawl over just about anything in its path. We had some fun with the tank roaming around the grounds out front of Oakley and even tested out the Bronco's crawling ability up and over the top.