JGbronc
Bronco Maniac
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2007
- Messages
- 6,216
The “Budd Body” theory that now needs to die!
So we’ve all seen it, and most of us including me believed it. 66 “Budd Body” Bronco. It was alleged that the Budd company built the early 66 bodies and that is why there were so many unique differences. This made sense to most of us, and some took it to the extreme by using this to hype up ads for their Broncos or throwing the term around like it was a Shelby GT500. Well new information has surfaced to confirm this isn’t the case. I myself have unknowingly shared misinformation about this.
It all started at a Carlisle show when one of our well known vendors ran into some folks who worked for the Budd Company. He, like the rest of us, always believed the theory. They however explained that Budd was behind building body panels for ALL the 66-77 Broncos on behalf of FoMoCo. He even asked about subtle changes such as the eyebrow grill and they basically said it was as simple as a tooling change.
I along with others was skeptical of this. Why would the things we always believed suddenly not be true? Were these guys involved with the company enough to truly know?
Fast forward a year or two, our very own Todd Zuercher does some research that seems to confirm what the Budd guys said. I’ll quote what he said:
“I asked some questions of the Ford Archives re: the Budd bodies and got this response:
Hi Todd,
Here's what I was able to find.
In October 1963, Budd Company provides engineering design services on proposed 1966 Bronco of body-in-white, seats, trim, and body electrical along with the majority of the body sheet metal components. (Edit - this is known info for Bronco historians. TZ).
In 1974, there is discussion around cost of sourcing sheet metal from Budd Company versus Ford’s Metal Stamping Division but it appears to be a hefty cost savings to continue to source from Budd. The record does not explicitly state that this is for Bronco panels but as a supplier to Ford overall.
As late as April of 1979 Budd Company is still listed as supplying sheet metal panels for Bronco, SuperCab, and Medium Trucks. However there were plans to reduce the amount of panels being supplied by Budd for the 1980 models.
Beyond 1979 I can't find mention of Budd providing specifically Bronco panels.
Hope this helps!
____________________________
Her answer doesn't explicitly state or give information that Budd produced the body panels for the 66-77 trucks. However, I infer from her 1974 statement that Bronco panels were likely included in the sourced panels from Budd, particularly since they were "still listed as supplying sheet metal panels for Bronco, SuperCab and Medium Trucks" in 1979.
I think it aligns with what the ex-Budd employees have told Nick.
Todd Z.”
So there you have it. Not only was it way overhyped since most 66s were built before December, it wasn’t a true theory all along.
So we’ve all seen it, and most of us including me believed it. 66 “Budd Body” Bronco. It was alleged that the Budd company built the early 66 bodies and that is why there were so many unique differences. This made sense to most of us, and some took it to the extreme by using this to hype up ads for their Broncos or throwing the term around like it was a Shelby GT500. Well new information has surfaced to confirm this isn’t the case. I myself have unknowingly shared misinformation about this.
It all started at a Carlisle show when one of our well known vendors ran into some folks who worked for the Budd Company. He, like the rest of us, always believed the theory. They however explained that Budd was behind building body panels for ALL the 66-77 Broncos on behalf of FoMoCo. He even asked about subtle changes such as the eyebrow grill and they basically said it was as simple as a tooling change.
I along with others was skeptical of this. Why would the things we always believed suddenly not be true? Were these guys involved with the company enough to truly know?
Fast forward a year or two, our very own Todd Zuercher does some research that seems to confirm what the Budd guys said. I’ll quote what he said:
“I asked some questions of the Ford Archives re: the Budd bodies and got this response:
Hi Todd,
Here's what I was able to find.
In October 1963, Budd Company provides engineering design services on proposed 1966 Bronco of body-in-white, seats, trim, and body electrical along with the majority of the body sheet metal components. (Edit - this is known info for Bronco historians. TZ).
In 1974, there is discussion around cost of sourcing sheet metal from Budd Company versus Ford’s Metal Stamping Division but it appears to be a hefty cost savings to continue to source from Budd. The record does not explicitly state that this is for Bronco panels but as a supplier to Ford overall.
As late as April of 1979 Budd Company is still listed as supplying sheet metal panels for Bronco, SuperCab, and Medium Trucks. However there were plans to reduce the amount of panels being supplied by Budd for the 1980 models.
Beyond 1979 I can't find mention of Budd providing specifically Bronco panels.
Hope this helps!
____________________________
Her answer doesn't explicitly state or give information that Budd produced the body panels for the 66-77 trucks. However, I infer from her 1974 statement that Bronco panels were likely included in the sourced panels from Budd, particularly since they were "still listed as supplying sheet metal panels for Bronco, SuperCab and Medium Trucks" in 1979.
I think it aligns with what the ex-Budd employees have told Nick.
Todd Z.”
So there you have it. Not only was it way overhyped since most 66s were built before December, it wasn’t a true theory all along.
