Jeff's 71 Stroppe

When Jeff purchased this 1971 BAJA Stroppe Bronco in the spring of 98 from a gentleman in Bennington, VT he was looking to complete his collection of vintage Bronco's with the most popular and sought after Bronco ever made. This truck, originally from Odessa, TX is one of the first 30 of 575 produced by Bill Stroppe and Associates in Long Beach, CA. It is perfectly restored to better than show room condition and is nearly flawless. Jeff unveiled this truck May 19th at the 15th Annual Spring 4-Wheel Jamboree Nationals in Lima, OH where it took Best Sport Utility and 2nd best Ford in the street class.

Jeff first disassembled the Bronco completely like he had done to all of his previous projects. Even with 118,683 miles this truck spent most of it's time in Texas so there was little rust or corrosion to fight during this tedious process. The engine and trans had less than 6,000 miles so they were just freshened up a bit, the rest of the drive train received platinum treatment and was complete rebuilt. Everything on the chassis was sandblasted, painted, and precisely reconditioned to OEM specifications right down to the original exhaust system with grey Jet-Hot coated manifolds.

The body was in excellent condition so it took very little preparation to get it ready for paint. The colors were poppy red, and wimbledon white on the body, blue metallic on the roof, and satin black on the hood.

During the assembly of the interior Jeff took meticulous in reinstalling everything as carefully as possible. Some things were reconditioned and some were taken from the archives of JBG shelves as Jeff has carefully saved many discontinued OEM and NOS Ford parts for a project of this magnitude. The same care was care was used while assembling the exterior including re-anodizing a perfect set exterior trim, and refinishing every chrome piece.

Getting right down to the nitty-gritty Jeff ordered a set of original Stroppe 8 1/2 X 15" Chrome wheels from Stockton Wheel and mounted 31 X 10.5" BFG Mud Terrains on them as the original Gates Commando tires are no longer available. Contacting Andrew Norton of BajaBronco.com Jeff was able to obtain the original Baja sticker for under the emblem which is now be reproduced.