ICON4x4Design's 1968 Ford Bronco
For those of us that just want to see the final vehicle, done.... here are some shots of it! Otherwise, read on if you care to learn about the process we went through to get there!
We started the process in January of 2011. First we flew out to Detroit to meet with various departments at Ford, to make sure we understood the heritage as well as the modern design language at Ford. We were really impressed by the passion of everyone in Detroit. The commitment there, in general, will be the reason for the success of the renaissance of industry in Detroit! Don't give up on good old Detroit! We garnered the support of Ford for the project, and they promised archival information, CAD files, and technical assistance for our planned drivetrain from the 2012 Ford Mustang GT.
When we got back to LA, we got started right away. Since the new Dynacorn bodies were not ready yet, we hunted down the best, original paint 66-77 Broncos we could find. I have always been a fan of the uncut fender look, so that was a must. It was pretty hard to find nice uncut Bronco's to start with. We searched far and wide to find five excellent specimens. We bought them from all over the country, and managed to get some really nice ones to start with. Here are a few of them.....
So the next step was to reach out to a select group of customers who we thought would appreciate this new venture, and help pay for it! We sent out a brief description and this sketch to people who know what we are all about, to see if they would be interested in owning on of the first batch of five.
Five is a good number to allow us to play with variations of the design, and hopefully break even on all of the absurd development costs to create such a ride. Within 72 hours of that email, we sold all five! Boy, did that feel good. We were honored that so many people appreciate our work, can afford it, and also allow us the latitude to work out all the details without providing them absolute clarity on what they were getting. We allowed the client to choose color, manual or automatic, and top configuration (topless, hard, soft, or both), but that was it. We really needed the freedom to work out the details and content on our own.
Now it was time to pick the first victim, and tear he body off of the frame. We used a Faro arm to digitally track and create point cloud data of the main body dimensions, wheel arches, and body mounts. Next we scanned the stock chassis to get it into CAD.
Then we worked with our dear friends at Art Morrison to engineer a chassis that would be far superior to the stock vintage one, as we did with our FJ and CJ ICON Vehicle line. The team at AM is world class, and a big part of our quality projects. So with the chassis engineering now sublet to them, I had a chance to focus on other details.
One of our ICON FJ clients is a principal player at Nike. We have been friends with the team at Nike for a while now. Our CJ was displayed there for the private industrial design show they do each year, to inspire their global creative team. When we were last up at their Beaverton Oregon campus, the CEO casually mentioned that I should keep him in the loop concerning future ICON R&D efforts. I was not sure why, but still I made a mental note of the offer. Mark is a very intelligent guy, and a brand genius! So as we got rolling on this project, I reached out to them to share my excitement. They upped the ante by saying that their team would love to be involved. Nike put together a team of ten engineers, mathematicians, fabricators and designers to help is on the project. Major breakthrough. Although you would not expect it, Nike has tremendous resources and talents that reach well beyond shoes. They have a world-class fab and R&D shop, called The Kitchen. Jason B, who heads up the kitchen, quickly became a close friend. We have loved working with those guys!
Speaking of gifted people, I ended up meeting Camilo Pardo while in Detroit. Camilo is a rock star designer in Detroit. He is most known for designing the modern take on the classic Ford GT40, The Ford GT. Camilo shares my love for classic designs revisited in a modern context. We became friends, and I was stoked when he accepted my offer to co-design the ICON Bronco. So over the next six months, I travelled back and forth to Detroit several times to work out the details. Good fun. I love my job!
