TODAY ON COIL SPRINGER: Big Bad Burly Broncos... and the men who love them.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

Don't confuse these Early Broncos with the later, full-size models; please don't ask if they're Bronco IIs; and whatever you do, for heaven's sake, don't call them Jeeps.

Ford Motor Co. manufactured the original (now called Early) Bronco from 1966 to 1977, and it remains a unique creature in the four-by universe. For one thing you could get a 289 V8 by the second model year, and the mighty 302 Windsor in 1969, both stock from the factory. They had the legendary Ford nine-inch rear end, also stock. They shared powertrains with the F-150, making them simple and cost-effective to manufacture. They were big, they were bad and they were Broncos, the original V8-powered SUV.

Yet Ford made only 230,000 in all 11 years of production. The best sales year was the last, when 35,000 went out the doors of Ford dealerships nationwide-more than Ford probably spills off the backs of transporters nowadays. Today there are Expeditions, Explorers, Excursions and Expialidociouses, yet there is nothing to match the brute force, crude interior and unstoppable off-roadworthiness of an Early Bronco.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the mighty beast, and to join in the celebration we weaseled our way into the fifth annual Big Bear Bronco Bash, put on by the SoCal Broncos Early Bronco Brotherhood, one of a handful of 40th anniversary celebrations across the country from Knoxville to Victorville.

Now with a name like Bronco Brotherhood you might expect cave men hitting one another over the heads with crankshafts and eating Jeep owners off a slowly rotating barbecue spit. So we were pleasantly surprised when we approached a few outside the Bash headquarters at the Golden Bear Cottages in the mountain resort town of Big Bear, California, and said hello. They all politely introduced themselves and we all pleasantly talked Broncos. There was not even a suggestion of barbecue sauce despite our having driven up the hill in an Audi Q7.

Then, as many more EBs arrived for the first run of the weekend-long Bash, we noticed another overriding trait that separates Early Broncos from all other SUV wannabes: None of them was stock. All the 30 or 40 Broncos we saw early that first day of the three-day event had flared fenders, 33-inch wheels, custom hoods and heavily modified engines.