Legacy Speed & Body’s Coyote-Swapped 1976 Ford Bronco

AS SEEN IN OUR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2026 ISSUE – Buy Now!

Legacy Speed & Body Rewound the Raptor Playbook 50 Years and Built the First-Gen Bronco Ford Never Did

Nobody at Ford was talking about Raptors in 1976.

Renee and Derek Zuck decided that shouldn’t stop them. After years of fabricating first-generation Bronco bodies and completing turnkey builds for customers, the owners of Legacy Speed & Body finally decided to build one for themselves. No customer approvals. No predetermined recipe. And, most importantly, nobody telling them when they’d gone far enough.

So they asked a question Ford never had a reason to answer: What would a Raptor-style Bronco have looked like 50 years ago?

This is their answer.

The 1976 Bronco combines a custom widebody, 35s, modern suspension, four-wheel discs, and Gen 3 Coyote power without abandoning the simple shape that made the original Bronco an icon. That’s harder to pull off than it sounds.

DON’T RUIN THE BRONCO
The entire build hinges on the body. Legacy worked with Infamous in Calgary, Alberta, to develop entirely new widebody flares, but simply making the Bronco wider wasn’t good enough. The flares were molded directly into the body so they flow from the original sheetmetal rather than looking bolted onto it.

The effect is subtle until you park it beside a stock Bronco. Then it’s anything but. The body is wider, lower-looking, and considerably more aggressive, yet you never have to squint to figure out what you’re looking at.

A custom cowl hood adds muscle up front, while Legacy kept the chrome bumpers and even hid the relocated fuel filler behind the driver’s side taillight. Underneath, 17×9 KMC KM238 beadlock wheels with bronze powdercoated rings wear aggressive 35×12.50R17 Mastercraft Courser tires.

It looks modified but it doesn’t look butchered—there’s a difference.

HIGHLAND GREEN, TURNED UP
PPG Highland Green covers the body, giving all that custom metalwork a color that can nearly disappear into shadow before exploding back into green when the light hits it.

Then Legacy broke up the darkness with what it calls the “Zeus” stripe. The satin-bronze accent doesn’t simply run down the exterior. It continues through the grille, hood, windshield frame, dash, steering column, and rear of the Bronco, turning what could have been a simple graphic into a theme running through the entire build.

Four LEDs incorporated into the upper grille provide one of the few obvious winks toward the Raptor inspiration. Legacy wasn’t trying to copy a modern Raptor. It was trying to imagine its ancestor.

NOW GIVE IT A COYOTE
A widebody Bronco pretending to be Ford Performance royalty had better have something worthwhile under the hood. Try a Gen 3 Coyote. The 2021 5.0L V-8 is considerably more engine than Ford ever intended to stuff between first-gen Bronco fenders, and getting it there became one of the biggest challenges of the project.

Legacy modified the original 1976 frame with dedicated engine mounts and worked through the packaging necessary to fit the modern DOHC V-8 into a very old, very small engine bay.

Shorty headers feed a custom 2.75-inch MagnaFlow exhaust, while a 2018 Ford 6R80 six-speed automatic and Quick 6 controller bring modern drivability to the package.

Custom driveshafts connect the transmission to a traditional Dana 20 transfer case, a solid Dana 44 front axle, and a classic Ford 9-inch rear running 3.50 gears. While a modern Raptor relies on an independent front suspension, Legacy kept the Bronco’s legendary, rugged solid-axle foundation intact. It’s classic Ford iron underneath, driven by modern Ford horsepower up front.

BUILT AROUND THE STANCE
Wild Horses 4×4 supplied the 2.5-inch suspension system with Bilstein shocks, while a 2-inch body lift provided the critical clearance needed to stuff that wide DOHC Coyote engine between the vintage inner fenders. Borgeson power steering makes the short-wheelbase truck manageable, while stopping power gets a massive safety upgrade via Wilwood four-wheel discs and a hydroboost master cylinder setup.

A 23-gallon M1A1 stainless EFI tank with a Holley pump keeps the Coyote fed. None of those pieces are particularly flashy. That’s why they work. The chassis wasn’t built to compete with the body for attention. It was built to make the body believable.

THE SAME IDEA INSIDE
Open the door and the theme doesn’t suddenly stop.

Legacy upholstered the front buckets and the fold-and-tumble rear seat in imported Italian Caballo leather with a distressed Cheyenne Slicker finish. Custom door and quarter panels, a padded tailgate, and matching roll-bar pads carry the treatment throughout the cabin.

A shaved dash houses Dakota Digital VHX instrumentation, while a custom center console incorporates cupholders and a Kenwood 6.8-inch touchscreen. Power windows add some modern convenience, and a 14-inch Mark 7 Woody steering wheel keeps one hand firmly in the past.

And that bronze Zeus stripe? It runs straight through the dash. That’s the detail that gives away how seriously Legacy took the concept. Nothing exists by itself.

THE BRONCO THAT NEVER WAS
The build took roughly a year, eventually launching on a high-profile tour from Calgary’s World of Wheels and the Out West Truck Fest straight to the absolute pinnacle of car culture: the SEMA Show and the neon-lit blocks of Barrett-Jackson.

But this Bronco started as something much simpler.

After building Broncos for everyone else, Renee and Derek finally wanted one that belonged to them. The widebody they created proved distinctive enough that Legacy chose not to turn it into another off-the-shelf flare kit. Instead, it remains exclusive to select Legacy builds.

Good. Because copying one piece of this Bronco misses what makes the whole thing work. It’s not a vintage Bronco trying to become a modern Raptor. It’s a modern idea sent backward through 50 years of Ford history.

Ford never built a Bronco Raptor in 1976. Legacy Speed & Body just made us wish it had.

UPGRADES

1976 Ford Bronco

OWNER: Renee & Derek Zuck / Legacy Speed & Body Strathmore, Alberta, Canada

ENGINE & DRIVETRAIN: 2021 Ford Gen 3 Coyote 5.0L DOHC V-8, Shorty Coyote headers, Custom 2.75-inch MagnaFlow exhaust system, Holley fuel pump, 2018 Ford 6R80 six-speed automatic, Quick 6 controller, Dana 20 transfer case, Custom front and rear driveshafts, Dana 44 front axle, Ford 9-inch rear axle, 3.50:1 front and rear gear ratio

SUSPENSION & CHASSIS: Original modified 1976 Ford Bronco frame, Welded Coyote-specific engine mounts, Wild Horses 4×4 suspension, 2.5-inch suspension lift, 2-inch body lift, Bilstein shocks, Borgeson power steering, M1A1 23-gallon stainless EFI tank, Holley fuel pump, Wild Horses/Wilwood,  disc brakes, front and rear, Wilwood master cylinder, Hydroboost

WHEELS & TIRES: 17×9 KMC KM238 beadlocks, Black finish with bronze powdercoated beadlock rings, 35×12.50R17 Mastercraft Courser tires

BODY & PAINT: PPG Highland Green, Satin-bronze “Zeus” stripe carried through the exterior and interior, Custom molded widebody kit by Legacy Speed & Body/Infamous, Custom cowl hood, Original-style chrome bumpers, Fuel filler relocated behind driver’s side taillight, Four integrated LED lights in the grille, PPG Highland Green paint

INTERIOR: Custom front bucket seats, Fold-and-tumble rear seat, Imported Italian Caballo leather upholstery, Distressed Cheyenne Slicker finish, Interior work by Legacy Speed & Body, Custom shaved dash, Dakota Digital VHX gauges, 14-inch three-spoke Mark 7 Woody steering wheel, Custom fabricated center console with cupholders, Kenwood 6.8-inch touchscreen head unit, Power windows, Custom door panels, quarter panels, and padded tailgate, Custom floor mats, matching roll-bar pads, and visors, Full family cage

SHOW HISTORY

2025 Calgary World of Wheels
Out West Truck Fest
SEMA Show 2025
Barrett-Jackson 2026

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Corey Decker

Corey Decker is a photographer and storyteller who views the world through a lens of authenticity. With a passion for capturing the raw beauty of landscapes and the quiet moments in between, Corey’s ...