FAMILY WAGON

DEL FAB RELIVES HIS FAMILY DREAM

- WORDS BY MIKE ALEXANDER IMAGES BY SOLOMON LUNGER

If you would have told Kyle Delfel that he would own a shop (Del Fab), build a badass SEMA award-winning Bronco, take home the top Ford Design award, and be shot for the cover of Tread all in a single year— he would have just laughed at you. You see, Kyle is about as humble as it comes, surprising from someone oozing with such talent. He had never set out to do any of this—at least not right out of the gate.

Let's rewind back to 2005; Kyle had just turned 16 and was cruising a 1975 Bronco. Like most of us gearheads, from that point forward he went through vehicles kind of like underwear. When he was just 18 years old, Kyle built his first solid-axle swap in the way of his 2004 GMC Denali XL. It was solid-axle swapped on 40s and his daily. Back then he wheeled an 1987 Toyota 4Runner, also solid-axle swapped on 40s, of course.

Back to present time, June 15, 2020, when the return of the Bronco was real, Kyle knew he had to have one to commemorate his very first truck. He started cruising through the models trying to pick the right Bronco to bring to life his childhood memories, but he stalled out a bit. With seven variations and all the options, he got overwhelmed and never placed an order. Come June 2021, his local Ford dealership, Bickford Ford in Snohomish, Washington, secretly told Kyle the Ford training Bronco would be parked out back at a certain day and time. He was allowed to sneak back there, lift the car cover, and gawk at the utter beauty. At that point, he was hooked and knew he needed to now own one.

A few weeks later, the dealership received their Mannequin Bronco, so Kyle convinced his wife—who didn't like the Broncos at all—to come check it out with him. No surprise, she absolutely fell in love, too. They went home ready to order 'his and hers' Broncos since they couldn't agree on a configuration.