'Pawn Stars' guest brings OJ Simpson's Bronco but Rick Harrison thinks 'it's a lot of money'
The car chase between legendary sportsman O.J. Simpson and the police in 1994 kept Americans on the edge of their seats. Simpson was later arrested, but the car in which he tried to escape became part of an iconic image. Over the years, many rare items showed up on "Pawn Stars," but nothing comes close to the rarity of that infamous White Bronco SUV. Rick Harrison got a call from the owner of the car, Mike Gilbert, who was Simpson's agent at the time of the infamous double murder case. While Harrison went in with the intent to buy the SUV, the asking price of $1.3 million was too big a gamble for him.
Gilbert drove down to the Pawn shop where he met Harrison and Chum Lee. "Wow! It is the OJ Bronco. Are you kidding me? I've never seen anything quite like this. This is it, well, it's not the OJ Bronco, it's his buddy's Bronco," Harrison exclaimed as he saw the car. Gilbert confirmed that the SUV belonged to Simpson's friend AC, who was in the driver's seat during the chase.
"The murders happened on June 12th (1994), and OJ was supposed to turn himself in on the morning of the 17th. He didn't, and that's the Bronco that everybody can remember seeing driving up the 405 freeway. I've been offered $500,000 for the Bronco, but I turned it down. So here it is, I would like to be able to sell the Bronco and then take that money and give it to my children," Gilbert shared in his interview.
When Harrison asked the owner about how he got the SUV, Gilbert explained that he was close to Simpson at the time, and he learned AC was trying to sell the car as soon as possible after the chase. "Some people were going to sell the Bronco to a company called Graveline Tours, and they were going to go up up and down the freeway, go by the murder site, and I just thought that'd be classless, especially since the trial hadn't started yet. So I got it from AC and have kept it pretty much hidden for the last 22 years," Gilbert explained.
Harrison then talked about the illustrious career of Simpson as a footballer and how everything fell apart in 1994. "Everyone remembers what they were doing when they saw the O.J. chase," he noted. Gilbert claimed that the car was the most viewed vehicle on the planet, after the motorcade vehicle in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Gilbert shared that the car had 36,000 miles on it, and there was a picture that showed AC in the driver's seat with the same license plate and the original holder that was still intact. With no doubt that it was the real deal, the three men took a ride in the car along the highway. During the ride, Gilbert shared that he was behind the Bronco at the time of the chase, and he had experienced the thrill of it firsthand. "I've had people who, when I went to get gas or something, would say, 'Hey, you want to sell it?' And I'm like, yeah, but it's probably not in your budget," Gilbert recalled.
After the ride, Harrison asked the golden question, "How much do you want for this?" The owner said that he was looking to sell it for $1.3 million. The high price tag blew Rick's mind, but Gilber reasoned that the SUV was one of a kind and more people have seen the vehicle than any other vehicle on Earth. After Harrison hesitated to make a move, Gilbert dropped his ask to $1.25 million. However, the pawn shop boss still chose to pass on it. "Something like this is so much of a gamble because there's nothing to compare it to a price," he said.
Thus, Harrison couldn't make a deal for one of the most infamous items to ever appear on the show. Gilbert also remarked that he wouldn't sell the car for anything below a million dollars.
