Our new house had a great shop area in the basement, and I have always wanted a project vehicle. I thought I wanted to do a rat rod, a 1920s Model A perhaps. But the wife was having no part of that. She said it had to fit the family of four and be a convertible. So the search began.

I began cruising Craigslist, looking for a cool project to build. Late one Friday night in May, this bright yellow 1967 Bronco popped up in Warrensburg. I started calling and texting the seller. Finally after an hour he returned my calls and we set a time and place to meet up. So the next morning while the wife and youngest were running errands, my 3-year-old and I ran to the bank and U-Haul and headed off to Warrensburg. When we got there the guy had already gotten 20 calls on it, but he held it for me. It ran but barely. We test drove it, my first time with a 3 on the tree. We headed home to show the wife what we bought.

I began tearing it apart and sent the motor out to machining. I finally got the motor back and assembled. I got it up and running just in time for my birthday in September, with a yellow back end, black doors and silver grille.

We found out we were having our third boy in late August. So the wife gave me a hard deadline of having it done by the time the baby came. I worked on it every weekend and finally got it painted in early July. So after 14 months the Bronco was back on the road just in time for its 50th anniversary.

I am running a stock 302 and the original 3 speed but moved the shifter to the floor. I was able to retrofit a jump seat from a mid ’80s Wagoneer jump seat up front so I can still fit the whole family in for our night cruises around Shawnee Mission Park or the back roads of Johnson County, Kansas.