For the most part, mine is a Ford family. At least when it comes to trucks.
But the most-recent chapters in my history with Fords could have been written by a Chevy lover. It has been a rocky relationship of late.
The news today, though, is good. After it sat in the driveway for almost a year, we spent several hundred dollars this week and are back on the road in our old Ford Bronco. The old rig now has four new tires, along with a bunch of other new parts. But the work still isn’t done. Tonight I noticed it needs a new exhaust pipe to fix what really can’t be called just a leak.
The roaring exhaust contributes to the feeling that the Bronco is charitably what could be regarded as an Iowa boy’s hoopty
But it’s not entirely accurate to think of it as an Iowa-boy hoopty because I didn’t buy it. Nancy bought it in 2008 around the time we closed on the sale of our house in Idaho and she moved to Muscatine. I had been in Muscatine for several months when she called to say she was thinking of trading her old car, a 1991 Mercedes-Benz 300TE wagon, for a 1988 Bronco.
I was against the idea.
Now I’ll admit the Benz needed to have some work done to it, but I didn’t want to trade it for the Bronco. That Benz was a tank. It would have run forever.
As for a 20-year-old Ford? I figured it would be broken down most of the time. And I am not a mechanic.
Nancy traded the cars anyway. And the Bronco has been broken down many times since we’ve had it. Meanwhile, I’m sure someone, somewhere, has gotten much more use out of an old Mercedes station wagon.
But, in spite of all of that, when the Bronco is running, I really like driving it. I can’t help it. For years, I drove a Ford Ranger pickup of about the same vintage. And the Bronco is painted the same awful turquoise that Ford has used my entire life. It was the color of the 1965 Ford ton truck in which I learned to drive — the truck my dad disliked so much that I don’t think he ever washed it in the 20 years he owned it.
Having just written the preceding sentence, and taking taken a few minutes to think about it, maybe I come by my love-hate relationship with the Bronco honestly. Maybe it’s how my dad felt about that old farm truck. After all, when he finally retired it, he bought another Ford — a really nice red one.
And if you want to know the truth, I never really drove that Benz. It was a great car, but it didn’t really fit my personality. I am a Steinbach, after all, and I am a Ford truck guy.
Brome Hill 
My boyfriend is a Ford truck guy, too. He switched to an Explorer many years ago and treated it like a farm pickup…smellly and full of tools and trash. I hated riding in it AND driving it. Then it died, so I gave him my Escape and I got a Focus. He never really liked it; I think he thought it was too girly to be a farm truck. It, too, died several months ago, and we waited until he found…a cherry red Explorer. He’s a happy man again…and it’s already trashed.