Years ago, before the J Mays Thunderbird kicked off the American retro car movement, Kevin Pollak was on The Tonight Show discussing an ailing Detroit with car nut Jay Leno. "I think what they need to do is build the '57 Chevy again," Pollak said (I'm paraphrasing from memory). "They must still have the plans sitting on a shelf somewhere. Their current cars suck. The old ones didn't. Dust the old plans off and build it again."
The idea of driving around in a brand-new yet classic automobile is alluring. Taking Pollak's concept further, it would be even better if that classic vehicle was loaded with cutting-edge, modern-day underpinnings. And one man who has turned that concept into reality, in Los Angeles rather than Detroit, is Jonathan Ward.
Ward is the CEO, Lead Designer and Founder of Icon, a company that completely rebuilds three classic off-road vehicles--the Ford Bronco, the Willys Jeep, and the Toyota Landcruiser—and updates them with modern mechanicals and bespoke configurations.
What Icon does are not mere restorations: In addition to completely modernizing the body, suspension, drivetrain, transmission, motor, steering, electrical, and even the seating, they go as far as building custom chassis, tuning and stretching them as per the configurations' requirements. The key things carried over from the original vehicles are the style and the spirit. Everything else is state-of-the-art.
"No one has ever applied real craftsmanship to the blank canvas [these vehicles] can be," says Ward. He and his company have stepped in to fill that gap, creating a sort of niche transportation category armed with technology that a Toyota designer from 1959 could never have envisioned (read about the paint, below!). Hit the jump to learn about some of the surprising hardware sources and manufacturing lengths Icon goes to to produce their FJ series.
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