What Happened to OJ Simpson White Bronco From Police Chase

It has less than 40,000 miles on the odometer, comes with a luxurious leather interior and sports a V-8 engine with a whopping 200 horsepower. But its biggest selling point is that its previous owner was a retired NFL star who only drove it around town for light errands — and an epic freeway police chase.

It’s no mystery what happened to the late OJ Simpson when he was arrested for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman – a trial, gloves, acquittal, a And the 2008 arrest (and this time conviction. ) for the armed robbery and kidnapping of two Las Vegas sports memorabilia dealers — but what about the white Ford Bronco? In June 1994, the vehicle captivated a nation, with 90 million viewers tuning in to watch live news helicopter coverage of it being chased by 405 Los Angeles Police Department cars. It was two of the most exciting hours of TV. History.

But later? Then where did the car go?

Turns out it took a long road trip, with pit stops involving a lawsuit, a porn mogul and an ex-agent, and a reality show, until it finally ended in a place called Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

The Bronco in question, of course, didn’t actually belong to Simpson. Although OJ had his own identical white SUV, the one the police were chasing on TV was Simpson’s friend and fellow NFL star Al Cowlings, who was behind the wheel while Simpson, with a loaded gun. Back and forth, told him where to go. Drive When the chase finally stopped at Simpson’s Brentwood home, the car was impounded by police and eventually returned to Cowlings.

Not surprisingly, Cowlings never wanted to sit in it again. He asked a friend, Don Kress, who worked for a sports agent, to find a buyer. It didn’t take long to attract a prospect: Michael Cronk, a memorabilia collector, reportedly offered $75,000 for the car (though, for that price, he also got 250 autographed photos of Cowlings driving the car). wanted). In November 1994 – just before the jury was selected in Simpson’s trial – Cronk was to meet with Kreiss and Cowlings and exchange the check for the keys. But Cowlings never showed up; He had apparently changed his mind.

According to an impressively thorough 2014 investigation of car history by USA Today, Kronick sued Cowlings over the deal and the two reached an undisclosed settlement a few years later, in 1996. By then, though, Cowlings had changed his mind again and sold the white Bronco — this time for the real one. reported $200,000 to a man named Michael Pulver, also known as “The Porn King,” owner of Paradise Visuals, a major film company in the 1990s.

Pulver kept the Bronco under wraps, parking it in the underground garage of his luxury condo in the Wilshire Corridor. For more than a decade it lay hidden in plain sight, like the end of the Ark of the Covenant in that barn. Indiana Jones. According to USA TodayIt was so neglected that all the air in its tires was blown out.

But then, around 2012, the Bronco graced the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas (where it was used to promote the opening of a sports museum called SCORE) and an art exhibit in Greenwich, Connecticut. Appearing impulsively, it reappeared. Nate Lowman, an artist who used images of a topless Nicole Brown Simpson in some of his canvases).

It then disappeared again for another five years, until 2017, when it popped up on an episode. Pawn StarsHistory Channel reality show about a pawn shop in Las Vegas. Simpson’s former agent, Mike Gilbert – now claiming ownership of the car, saying offhand that he bought it from Cowley, who apparently hadn’t owned it in years – appeared on the show and the car. Tried to sell for a cool million dollars.

Gilbert got an offer but for his asking price. He turned it down and instead the car found a second home, possibly, hopefully its last.

Today, 30 years after this blockbuster car led the police on a chase, the most infamous automobile of the 20th century is finally parked in a safe place. It is now part of an exhibit at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, sharing a showroom with John Dillinger’s 1933 Essex Tarpaulin and Ted Bundy’s Volkswagen Beetle.

“It’s one of our most popular attractions,” Ellie Pennington, the museum’s artifacts and programs manager, told The Hollywood Reporter. “People come from all over.”