Born in Detroit: The lowdown on Jack White and his white-striped Ford Broncos

Jack White had always wanted a red Ford truck. Now he’s got a pair of them — two Broncos spanning nearly five decades — and the results are eye-popping.

White's initial motivation was sentimental: After all, the rock musician had been driven home in a red Ford after his birth in a Detroit hospital on July 9, 1975.

So a few years ago he got his hands on a 1975 Bronco, equipped with a Ranger package, manufactured July 8-11 that year — meaning the truck was rolling down the line at Ford’s Wayne plant just as White entered the world. The red-and-white color scheme was a perfect match for the rocker, harking back to the iconic visuals of his band the White Stripes.

When Ford announced in 2018 it was reviving the Bronco, White was eager to get his hands on one, as he revealed this week in an Instagram post. The new truck would be a day-to-day vehicle, he said, parked next to the vintage model in a “generation-spanning two-pony stable.”

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Alas, the new red Broncos wouldn’t be manufactured with white trim. White eventually tracked down a red model trimmed in black, outfitted with standard features, and put his artistic brain to work.

He linked up with Greening Auto Company, an Alabama custom shop, to help bring his vision to life.

“The concept I had was to showcase two different versions of the same standard song, two generations of the same iconic truck,” White wrote. He wasn’t aiming to create a modern replica — rather, this would be “an attempt at retrofuturism in a way, or perhaps 'RetroPresentism.'”

He wanted “the beauty of the same factory pushing out the same product, just in different eras of pop culture.”

White’s efforts were applauded Wednesday by Mike Levine, Ford’s North American product communications director.

“It's always mind-blowing, humbling and rewarding for the Ford team to see the passion people put in to making a Bronco their Bronco,” Levine told the Detroit Free Press.

White, who cut his teeth as a furniture upholsterer in Detroit before breaking big in the rock world, researched fabrics for the job, finding a caramel-colored houndstooth that was a perfect match for the original ’75 package.

“I wish I could've had time to do the upholstery myself but touring this year was prohibitive,” he said. “Though, I was never a car upholsterer. Lots of hog rings, no tacks or wood, not my area of expertise as an upholsterer.”

For the exterior, White wrote he sought to make the new Bronco a “full-size matchbox car” that was “cartoonish and toylike, to juxtapose the brawn of a typical 4X4.” That included a white-matte roof and fender flares, white hood handles, white rims, even a white horse logo in back. He and Greening Auto even put a modernized spin on a retro grille.

Soon after White’s reimagined truck arrived from the Alabama shop, Ford announced it was launching a Bronco Heritage Edition for 2023.

“I guess we think alike!” White wrote. “But many design elements are not the same, and I’m still working on this.”

Ford’s Levine noted the similarities.

“Jack's Bronco is amazing because it tracks so closely to where the Ford Design team landed celebrating the original Bronco with the new Bronco Heritage Edition,” Levine told the Free Press. “Same white roof, white wheels and white grille and bold red paint. It's like convergent evolution mashed up with common ideal retrograde style.”

More photos are available at White's Instagram page.

Free Press staff writer Phoebe Wall Howard contributed to this report.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The lowdown on Jack White and his white-striped Ford Broncos