We're like moaning about it for years and another builder's like oh let me show you a picture of the original assembly line manual the gaps tolerance was a half an inch which obviously no one's gonna tolerate on a quarter million dollar retro but that's something that I've learned to be careful with in speaking to clients to manage expectations. Like, I don't want it to drive like your Tesla like and frankly, I don't want it to so we try to keep it a visceral man machine relationship. And if you want to be a Yahoo and let the ass hang out not lock the rear and stay in two-wheel drive until you get stuck, you can. We partnered with Brembo and I'm so stoked they finally would work with little old us, so now we have our own proprietary sport brakes for these that are hydro boosted.

Which I used to hate because it was like semi-truck derived tech and it was just too touchy but now like you get the modulation you get change of input output and blah blah blah like billions of details. The pedal feel is soft, but those Brembos obviously grab the brake rotors really well so it actually has like a really luxurious feeling to it. It's like sitting down in a really soft leather chair, but it's supportive and shaped really well that is really nice.

I've driven a ton of Broncos. 99 of them are complete piles of junk straight up. I have never I drove a Bronco recently there was another company's high-end build it was a quarter of a million dollars coyote motor push button start all the bells and whistles right touch screen everything fully modern build, and I have never in my life felt like I was more likely to hit a row of parked cars. You didn't steer right, it didn't break right every time you hit the gas it pulled left and every time you hit the brakes it pulled to the right.

The steering was so loose and imprecise and I wondered why anybody would want a bronco for this one drives predictably. It does the thing you tell it to and that shouldn't be such a tall order, right? I understand that doing the thing it's supposed to do is like yeah, it makes sense but the fact is most Broncos don't both Broncos drive like straight garbage the original stock ones and most modified ones as well.

And so that's why it's worth the extra money to go with Icon and just have the complete ground up package. Because yeah, it hurts to write that check but at least the thing you get at the end of the tunnel works like it's supposed to drives like it's supposed to. And from what I gather and I don't know because I don't own one because I don't have a spare 300 Grand I gather they hold up that powder coating process on the body is supposed to really help with longevity.

And yes, I know that we are driving this on a windy road. I get it, it's not it's an off-road truck and we're not driving it off-road but for one, it's a brand new sold unit we can't get it all dirty they've spent a lot of time cleaning it. But for two, a lot of people aren't really going to go off-road in these. It's two handmade expensive, it's not fragile; it's tough. It has all the hardware, it has the locking differentials, it has the low range, it has the tires at the brakes the power.

But not a lot of people are wealthy enough to want to scratch one of these things up as we learned with the Polaris Razor. A lot of the charm is being able to break it and not care but like I said, the fact is most of these can't even handle a straight road let alone a windy road and so if you build a Bronco that can go up a Canyon Road predictably easily without having to put any thought into it that is a rousing success by the standards of bronco all production icons start at around 200 realistically the Broncos today are around 300 and up.

They don't get past 300 and something; they don't get into the four something. The crazy one-offs do because they're absurd and like all that non-recurring engineering has to happen on that one car but now we're at a hundred where I have the opportunity, we trust the platform, we trust the process everything's in CAD now we're trying to exploit the efficiencies and scalability of repeating them.

I'm always amazed but never surprised. I've known John Ward for over 10 years now and his builds are always just class class class it's the stuff you didn't know you needed until you try it, and then you wonder how anyone has done it any other way.

Remember, always fight your tickets use code tst10 on the off the Record app available in the Android and iOS store or go to offtherecord.com TST.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat is this it's just an old Bronco the idea behind icon was just what I wanted and didn't see which was from the ground up take full responsibility for the engineering and that's the only way you're going to really revolutionize evolve the mechanical and like the drive experience so a stock Bronco with a lift kit from one dude a power steering kit from another dude in a disc brake kit from another dude with a coyote thrown in it is a squirrely death trap in my opinion an experience and it just doesn't work it's fine and it's fun again depending on how you're going to use it or what your budget is I'm not poo pooing it but the geek that I am wanted to say like no let's scan the body understand the platform start from the ground up everything and click all the boxes and then that's really what makes the difference what's wrong with stock Bronco nothing they're brilliant if you're cool with the constraints of that like if you're the way you're going to use it can stay in that happy little space of vintage charm then great I'd love the aesthetic and the continuity and the the feeling of vintage but I just don't have patience for squirrely steering and crap suspension and all that stuff there is so much that is impressive about this truck the first thing I notice immediately is the tight tolerances there's no squeaks or rattles there's a little bit of wind noise because this is basically as aerodynamic as a lawn chair but it is tight tight tight the second thing I notice is the steering they have completely removed the original Bronco steering system and icon uses a proprietary steering box it's similar to the one they use that I love so much in their fjs and it makes steering these vintage trucks so much nicer the feel is good the ratio is good the wheel itself is very nice and then I'm kind of taken by how nice all the inputs are the brakes are a very Progressive and modern feel the throttle response it's kind of what you'd get out of a commercial truck today but again we're talking about something from the 60s it's got modern power and it doesn't even frankly need it this thing needs about 200 horsepower and it has about 420 horsepower now John won't really advertise this but he actually detunes the coyote engines a little bit because they're a little too much for the truck we also recently evolved to the later gen coyote which is like whack-a-mole every time they come out with a new one there's some new thing we have to redo the coyotes are super sensitive to airflow so this has a yet again our third redesign of isolated cold air intake but captive air box Curry who I worked with on the project at Ford and became friendly with and have long been I mean they're Legends so they now do our axle assemblies we alter the geometry a bit the very first Bronco had a different arm structure in the front suspension that we were trying to God forbid be efficient and use from our FJ but the engine to Center axle relationship in the Broncos quite different so it was squirrely as all hell so now we're on radius arm with Johnny joints tunable sway bars we also worked with Fox Racing now we have for our sport suspension option the tunable dual rates of tuned nitrogen charge suspension so it's coil all the way around radius front four bar rear with remote cans and tunable sway bars yeah then it does that what I will say is that the suspension and sway bars both of which are adjustable do a great job of managing the center of gravity in the car I mean you'd be a little cautious around the corner my brain is set to uh Cayenne Turbo GT that's what I drove yesterday it just listens to you give it an input it sets after like a second or two so you send a message it opens that email second not first but opens it second and then you turn and then fighting wind noise which frankly we never won that battle like we added our own extrusions and sound proofing and all these things to get better the bodies we now actually pioneered suspended zinc epoxy powder coat process once the metal work is done and it's in raw white metal block that which is the pain in the butt and then conventional paint and clearance ceramic and polyurea underneath Etc but it's a lot of extra steps to evolve them for longevity not for let's just sell these cheap and party on everything about this truck just feels like quality now is it a sports car on this road no it's set up to be an off-roader and a cruiser so yeah there's body roll but even so it's not like it's going super super slow down this road it can handle this the seating position the driving position and the ergonomics are also well thought out Everything You Touch feels totally solid and like it's going to last a really long time these these pull knobs for the lights very satisfying the click of the blinkers extremely solid the thickness and meatiness of the steering wheel it's really tough and it's easy to grip you never have to put too heavy of a hand on it even stuff like these visors which are see-through they're from learjets and that being able to put that visor down and see through it but still have a tinted uh view that's just that's brilliant and even the mechanism that it's on feels very tight precise tough I'm very tactile I hate plastic so everything's machined or stainless and like if it looks traditional on the old school but when you touch it you're like hell yeah it's not plastic that's actually metal from the factory over 30 parts in this Bronco were plastic which makes sense it's cheap it's light it's cheap it's easy to make those things fit wherever you need them to fit but to turn those into metal is much more challenging you got to scan every single one you got to make it fit in the body or wherever it's being housed and then it has to function correctly but what it does is give you this sense that everything about this has been thought through and done as well as it could possibly be done everything you operate in here is of extremely high quality and well thought out these vents they look like they have normal you know just circular vents well one they're aluminum not plastic anymore but two to close or open them you just pull them back to open and push them forward to close it's just so simple and so smart and so well done I wasn't allowed to talk about it for the longest time but I'm super proud and happy now I can actually speak about it I worked with Ford for over five years on design of the new Bronco as a consultant and it was such a fun experience but to celebrate the hundredth of our version I took inspiration from my new Bronco I got from Ford and tried to figure out like different elements I could play with so like the cactus gray we blacked out a lot of trim that's normally satin silica blasted stainless or anodized our Wheels now we redid the forgings so it's compliant with the new Bronco on the interior I did some more Progressive weird stuff that I normally do which is generally I'll go more retro or like the Chillow witch were famous we've been using forever but this time I use spinny back leather but I use a super funky silicone we got out of Germany for this seat Center bolsters and door and cargo panels which is killer because it grips you like kind of like an old velor interior but not to the point of like velcro and it's super durable and I like the technical process of how it was created whoa rollski I like that they haven't gone too fancy like it's high quality but not high tech like it's an analog gauge cluster it's a key that you turn it's mechanical levers to operate uh the low range transfer cases it's a column shifter it's not a push button you don't spend 300 Grand at Icon to have a brand new Bronco you want to have that vintage Vibe you just don't want the Vintage headaches and you don't want it to feel super crappy like these things were built like straight garbage and this one this one is not the vi that's the visor vibrators let's pull it back a little bit now it goes away there's a stereo and it's hidden in this little safety box and I can put the cover away there that's very nice plus I can tap tap tap from right here without having to reach for the dash there may be individuals or companies out there that get a Bronco and they put some good parts on it they put good diffs on it they put um axles engines Transmissions Etc and that can transform parts of the vehicle absolutely you can make it quicker it can make it more capable off-road it can make it ride a little bit better what icon does that's so amazing is they make every interaction you have with the car remind you of the money you spent on it and the thought that went into it Everything You Touch feels expensive these door handles were plastic now they're metal we're like moaning about it for years and another Builder's like oh let me show you a picture of the original assembly line manual the gaps tolerance was a half an inch which obviously No One's Gonna tolerate on a quarter million dollar retro but that's something that I've learned to be careful with in speaking to clients to manage expectations like I don't this is not going to drive like your Tesla like and frankly I don't want it to so we try to keep it a visceral man machine relationship and if you want to be a Yahoo and let the ass hang out not lock the rear and stay in two-wheel drive until you get stuck you can we partnered with Brembo and I'm so stoked they finally would work with little old us so now we have our own proprietary sport brakes for these that are Hydro boosted which I used to hate because it was like semi-truck derived Tech and it was just too touchy but now like you get the modulation you you get change of input output and and like blah blah blah like billions of details the pedal feel is soft but those brembos obviously grab the brake rotors really well so it actually has like a really luxurious feeling to it it's like sitting down in a really soft leather chair but it's supportive and shaped really well that is really nice I've driven a ton of Broncos 99 of them are complete piles of jug straight up I have never I I drove a Bronco recently there was another company's high-end build it was a quarter of a million dollars coyote motor push button start all the bells and whistles Right Touch Screen everything fully modern build and I have never in my life felt like I was more likely to hit a row of parked cars it you didn't steer right it didn't break right every time you hit the gas it pulled left and every time you hit the brakes it pulled to the right the steering was so loose and imprecise and I wondered why anybody would want a bronco for this one drives predictably it does the thing you tell it to and that shouldn't be such a tall order right I understand that doing the thing it's supposed to do is like yeah it makes sense but the fact is most Broncos don't both Broncos drive like straight garbage the original stock ones and most modified ones as well and so that's why it's worth the extra money to go with icon and just have the complete ground up package because yeah it hurts to write that check but at least the thing you get at the end of the tunnel works like it's supposed to drives like it's supposed to and from what I gather and I don't know because I don't own one because I don't have a spare 300 Grand I gather they hold up that powder coating process on the body is supposed to really help with longevity and yes I know that we are driving this on a windy road I I get it it's not it's an off-road truck and we're not driving it off-road but for one it's a brand new sold unit we can't get it all dirty they've spent a lot of time cleaning it but for two a lot of people aren't really going to go off-road in these it's two handmade expensive it's not fragile it's tough it has all the hardware it has the Locking differentials it has the low range it has the tires at the brakes the power it has all that Hardware but not a lot of people are wealthy enough to want to scratch one of these things up as we learned with the Polaris Razor a lot of the charm is being able to break it and not care but like I said the fact is most of these can't even handle a straight road let alone a windy road and so if you build a Bronco that can go up a Canyon Road predictably easily without having to put any thought into it that is a rousing success by the standards of bronco all the production icons start at around 200 realistically the Broncos today are around 300 and up they don't get past 300 and something they don't get into the four something the crazy one-offs do because they're absurd and like all that non-recurring engineering has to happen on that one car but now we're at a hundred where I have the opportunity we trust the platform we trust the process everything's in CAD now we're trying to exploit the efficiencies and scalability of repeating them I'm always amazed but never surprised I've known John Ward for over 10 years now and his builds are always just class class class it's the stuff you didn't know you need until you try it and then you wonder how anyone has done it any other way and remember always fight your tickets use code tst10 on the off the Record app available in the Android and iOS store or go to offtherecord.com TST\n"