Could This Be The "Press Bronco" From Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas?
When Raoul Duke, protagonist of Hunter S. Thompson’s best-known work, goes to cover the story of the ’71 Mint 400 race, he attempts to observe the race from a Ford-owned truck. When I saw this ’72 at a Denver wrecking yard a few days ago, I figured I might be looking at that very same truck!
Of course, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas is fiction, but Thompson really did attempt to cover the Mint 400 and he might well have caught a desert ride in a Bronco such as this one.
In Thompson’s words: The Ford Motor Company had come through, as promised, with a “press Bronco” and a driver, but after a few savage runs across the desert—looking for motorcycles and occasionally finding one—I abandoned this vehicle to the photographers and went back to the bar.
It looks like this truck has been sitting outdoors with the windows open for decades and the body is rusted to hell. Probably some decent parts left on it somewhere, though.
Maybe the good ol’ Windsor still runs. You never know, you know?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Pity, this must have been a good-looking Bronco when it was in good shape. Noticed at one time it had collector plates (upper half is still attached). Wonder if this was one of those unfortunate cases of a vehicle that was kept in great condition, then the owner died/got arrested/became disabled/went missing and it got parked "out back" by a relative who didn't care, where it rotted away for the next fifteen years until someone called the salvage yard.