How O.J. Simpson burned the Ford Bronco into America's collective memory
The Ford Bronco initially was conceived and designed for rugged outdoorsy types, a two-door means of escape to nature from the bustling cities of mid-century America.
But it had already been tamed and polished for suburbanites, with cruise control and air conditioning, by 1994 when O.J. Simpson cowered in the back of one, a handgun to his temple, as patrol cars followed it for about two hours in the California twilight.
The model was discontinued two years later. But the Bronco — or at least that white Bronco — became one of America’s most iconic automobiles after the slow-speed chase on the Los Angeles freeways that played out on TV screens before an audience of millions, a moment that was seared indelibly into the nation’s cultural memory.
“Kids who were born in the 2000s, even they know that’s O.J.,” Marcus Collins, a University of Michigan marketing professor, said of his students. “It’s just as salient as me showing the Twin Towers on fire. It definitely became etched in the zeitgeist because of all the contextual associations that we applied to it.”