Ford is bringing back the Bronco – an iconic name almost as synonymous with Ford as the Mustang. It almost brought back something else.
Memories of O.J.
The white ’93 Bronco driven – slowly – along California’s highways, the ex-leaper of airport turnstyles and suspected double-murderer behind the wheel, with a fleet of California Highway Patrol cars behind him, is perhaps the most iconic slow-motion car chase in American history.
As weird as that was, even weirder is that Ford almost launched the new Bronco on O.J.’s birthday, July 9. News story here.
I would love to!
Apparently, someone checked. The reveal has been moved to July 13. “We wanted to be respectful of this concern,” said Ford Communications Chief Mark Truby.
But one wonders whether Ford may have missed a marketing opportunity. Much has changed since the 1994 murders of O.J.’s ex-wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Or maybe they just began.
A new America was born on that day. One that lined the streets holding signs and cheering “the juice,” as O.J. was sometimes called. Whether O.J. actually did kill his ex-wife and her friend is almost beside the point. The public’s verdict was that O.J. should go free as a proxy fuck you to the system, widely regarded even then as systemically corrupt and abusive.
And here we are, almost 25 years later. Has anything changed – for the better? Are the state’s mercs any less vicious? Or are they better armed – and protected – by the same system that was hated so much by so many all those years ago?
The question hardly requires typing out an answer.
So maybe Ford should have launched the new Bronco on O.J.’s birthday – and gone all-in with an O.J. Edition Bronco. All white exterior, with red trim embellishments. Perhaps even signed by “the juice” himself. A special duffle bag included, too.
Who wants to bet against the idea that it would sell at full MSRP – plus a huge markup?
One can argue that such a thing is a metric of societal sickness, then as now. Two people were, after all, horribly murdered – whether by O.J. or some other person (various theories, some not incredible, have been put forward, including that it was perhaps O.J.’s son who did the deed).
But those two people were stick figure casualties – nothing personal – of a much wider crime. Just as O.J. himself isn’t the main character in this sorrowful play. This slow-motion train wreck, which has been happening for much longer than two hours or almost 25 years, even.
One can trace it back all the way to 1861 – the year of the second American secession movement, which failed. And perhaps even farther, all the way back to 1787, which was the year the first American secession movement – successful on the battlefield, unlike the second one – was O.J.’d by a backroom shady deal that replaced the leave-you-alone Articles of Confederation with the we-own-you Constitution.
The ownership being made abundantly clear shortly thereafter via the era’s equivalent of the CHP chasing down rural Pennsylvania farmers who objected to being mulcted by the newly constituted federales. The Whiskey “rebellion” – as it was and has been styled – was put down with the usual violence, an 18th century Hut! Hut! Hutting!
It got worse from there.
Despite their being a First Amendment – part of 10 Amendments (read, afterthoughts; sops, really, to the unhappy Jeffersonians who felt – rightly – that they’d been had by the Federalists) that plainly stated a right to speak freely, speech contrary to the likings of the Federalists and their new leader soon became “seditious,” under the “act” of that name.
And then – somehow – via something called Marbury v. Madison – we swapped out the tyranny of elected men for the tyranny of lifetime appointed ones. Who appointed themselves the arbiters of what the Constitution’s powers are. Which is to say, their power over us.
And so things proceeded.
There was a belated awakening that finally came to blows – in 1861. But things had been allowed to slide for much too long. The power aggregated by the system had already become insuperable. The South was made to “howl” by Sherman – a writ-large version of the thug who recently stood on George Floyd’s neck, both actions performed for the same fundamental reason, which is to make us howl. 
Block by block and bit by bit, the edifice grew, the chains weighed heavier. And with it, the burning – an excellent word, penned by a Soviet who understood what Americans felt and still feel, perhaps even more so – toward the system and its minions.
It all poured forth in ’94. Deranged and cruel, certainly – but also understandable. There is a quote – attributed to British Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, who – when asked whether he felt bad about deliberately fire-bombing German cities, responded with: “Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”
Indeed.
O.J. is incidental.
What ought to trouble us – because of what it portends – is that a 2021 O.J. Edition Bronco would probably sell better than a black-and-gold Trans-Am signed by Burt Reynolds.
. . .
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What I don’t get is why can’t they make a new iconic car anymore…. always have to rely on the legendary names of the past to sell the current overpriced cars with all the crap people dont really care for, but none of the personality of say the Bronco, or the Mustang (the new mustang electric SUV thing). Its like those in charge cant even be bothered anymore…. When was the last time a new legendary car line came out from one of the western names?
Hi Nasir!
I think the reason is the West is dying – and just asa dying man looks wistfully backward, so also a culture.
I agree, but also car companies are run by accountants and lawyers not car guys. In the “old days” these companies were run by engineers and car enthusiasts. Guys like DeLorean and Iacocca. Now GM is run by a Green New Deal social justice warrior.
Creativity has been replaced with conformity. Have you ever noticed how many cars are painted gray. Emblematic of a loss of enthusiasm, creativity and passion on the part of the consumer. Manufactures are playing it safe working under the ever increasing regulatory thumb of government and a sue happy society. Cars have become appliances. Just an observation.
Hi Oskar,
I agree with your observation… unfortunately. I’ve been around this game long enough to see it happening as it happened. The industry now vs. what it was say in ’95.
Not for the better.
“What ought to trouble us – because of what it portends – is that a 2021 O.J. Edition Bronco would probably sell better than a black-and-gold Trans-Am signed by Burt Reynolds.”
That doesn’t trouble me at all.
The revolutionary overtones you’re trying to impose on this event are a poor fit. Sure, there was racial bias in every conceivable direction. Still, OJ’s acquittal was reassuring proof that the American system of criminal justice still works (or at least it did, back then.) There was clear cut evidence tampering by the police detectives, led by Mark Furhman, and probably prosecutorial misconduct for going forward with the tainted evidence.
The prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and The Juice was Loose once again.
Whether OJ was guilty or not, this result was the way you or I would want it to be if we were ever charged of murder. Makes me feel good about the whole thing.
Of course it helps if you can afford to have F Lee Bailey, Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Kardashian on your defense team. 🙂
Mike, I knew when he had OJ try to put on that glove and the presecutors didn’t have enough sense to object, it was all over. Get a pair of soft leather gloves soaked in blood and they will never fit again until you wash them and put some leather conditioner on them……and you’ll have to wear them till they dry even at that.
Yes, I think the District Attorney failed to put his best prosecutors on the case, because he wanted the right “image.” Marcia Clark was supposed to represent female victims. Christopher Darden was supposed to sway some black sentiment back to the prosecuting team. Darden, who didn’t pass the Bar Exam until the summer of 1980 was way short on experience. Clark had a good reputation, but was not dynamic enough to direct this case….especially against “Team OJ.”
Be that as it may, they failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt. And OJ got out.
eric, this seems especially pertinent today when you wrote ” widely regarded even then as systemically corrupt and abusive.”
Well, now we have reached a plateau never dreamed by the common person. Only psychopaths like what’s going on now.
Excellent observation Eric, though I’ve always wondered if the jury would have found him “not guilty” if his wife was black rather than blonde.
Thanks, Mike!
No question, racial payback was an element. But note that lots of the people who lined the streets cheering OJ weren’t black. I conclude, therefore, that they were cheering him as their champion – against the system, which they despise. It probably wasn’t – and isn’t conscious but rather a kind of nihilistic war cry of the tortured and damned.
“And here we are, almost 25 years later. Has anything changed – for the better?”
When it comes to cars, not so much. Like the average American, cars have grown notably porkier, having lost the innocent rosy glow of their misspent youth, and sporting more unneeded behavioral quirks.
Speaking of Ford retro tributes, I once had high hopes for the relaunched Thunderbird in 2002. But it turned out to be more of a bland cream puff, neither svelte nor snarling … and available only with a slush-box transmission. BORING.
Will the new Bronco be a classic like the 1966 model? Probably not. Uncle wouldn’t allow Ford to relaunch the great ’66 Bronco, even if all the parts and dies could be marshaled to bring back the greatness. Straightforward and simple is illegal now.
Hi Jim,
Amen. I began my car journalist career around that time – early ’90s – and so have direct personal memories of driving the new cars of that time. The ’95 Cobra R I took on a very fast ride up to NYC isn’t very fast by today’s standards – but it was a car in the emotional sense. A 351 Cleveland with headers hooked up to a Tremec 5-speed and not a flat screen or “assist” in the vicinity. Those things were for fags (I use the word in the South Park sense). That car was about driving it. Which Ford designed it for. Not transportation. Not saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety, either. Also for fags.
I miss cars like that. They were much more fun to write about, too!
I worked at a Ford dealership during the time of OJ’s arrest. After the chase aired on TV we sold every white Bronco we had on the lot.
Hi Bin,
Yup. As it happened – another weird coincidence – at the time of the OJ Event I was driving a white Bronco press vehicle. People cheered me, too.
And now the communist are ripping down statues that have anything to do with the Confederation..
The erasing of anything to connect you to something to stand for is just another step in the final takedown.
That is a soccer-mom/yuppie designed pile of colon cancer excrement. Butt-fugly doesn’t even cover it.
Come on, now, be honest. OJ found Not Guilty was *NOT* the “public’s” verdict, it was the jury’s verdict, and it was not a “fuck you” to the system. It was a “fuck you” for Rodney King, and the fact that half a trillion dollars since 1965, and the ‘hood is worse off than before.
Here. Looked it up for ya.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror
at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”
– The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Been saying we need an OJ edition since day one, which should also include steak knives and a single glove
An undersized glove at that. One that won’t fit your hand.
Kudos Eric, many are unaware of the Articles or John Hanson a patriot and First President ( President of Congress ). The Constitutional convention was held supposedly to propose changes to the Articles but what happened was in effect a coup. The Articles were trashed, replaced by the Constitution, The prior held the States and People sovereign while the latter made the central government sovereign.
The Bill of government limitations ( called the Bill of Rights ) was written in as an afterthought to sway a few states votes. They now, like the Constitution are lost.
The war between the States etched in concrete that States could not secede without being utterly destroyed and that their power over the central government ended. It is when these United states became The United States. The 14th Amendment, illegally ratified, nationalized the States. Soon the State Militias were done away with circa 1906, The 16th and amendment ratified illegally made the People slaves to the State, the 17th ended any State control of the Federales and the Federal Reserve stole the Peoples real money for the trash that people today call money.
We’ll never know about OJ. It was a political racial trial just as the Floyd trial will be today. The first autopsy of Floyd shows he was loaded with drugs and died of a heart attack in the hospital. The 2nd politically correct autopsy is said to indicate he was asphyxiated and died at the scene. Which do you suppose they’ll use?
The Bronco is an electric version of the original. Those that think it’s over for the electric cars had better rethink. It is an important part in the governments war on individual freedoms. In particular, travel. Via their medical tyranny any travel will soon be difficult and will become impossible without the “mark” and the “injection”. With Musks Starlink 5G network to be activated this fall they will have 24 & 7 monitoring capability of every human on the planet once the injections and/or chips embedded in each of us is complete.
There is to be anywhere from 42,000 to 60,000 of these satellites in low earth orbit. Each beaming down 5G frequency. This will make many ill and as Catherine Austin Fitts explains is their reason for advancing the “second wave”. It appears the Bible is somewhat correct. Satan will continue to win until the second coming or the extinction of Man as the masses do not have the gumption to resist while resistance is still an option.
What are the satellites for? It can’t be for the phone system can it? The cell towers don’t even have satellite dish antennas. I would assume it’s gotta be some kind of space weapon system… maybe to be used against the people? This whole thing is really getting serious now. They’re all waging war against humans, when will the people notice that and start to get defensive???????
Many good points. Excellent essay. I believe at the start only property owners were allowed to vote. Universal suffrage to allow emotional easily manipulated women the right has led us to the communist paradise we live in today. There was also the unfortunate information age which coincided with the rise of totaltarianism that is going full steam now. So now we can be tracked – fired – ostracized – all based on what we do and say via electronic media that has its own communist gatekeepers.
Wow. Nice job of cohesively tying together the Ford Bronco, ’94, 1787, 1861 and 2020. Excellent summation of American history too. Bravo!
You seem to have an endless wellspring of pithy prose. To quote Slim Pickens’ character in Blazing Saddles, “You use your tongue prettier than a 20 dollar whore!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d8h1lbzoHY
Ahhh, Blazing Saddles. One of the greatest movies ever!