James Duff Inc.
The Bronco specialist since 1969
We at James Duff Enterprises, Inc., are proud to provide the quality products you want and need. We'd like to share with you a little about our company and its beginnings.
James bought his first Bronco in 1966 and after running the local sand dunes, decided to desert race in Baja. At the time, parts to toughen up his Bronco were scarce, so he [Baja 1000] made many of them himself. His creative modifications were so successful, that other Bronco owners began asking for his help. During his career he raced with the greats, including Bill Stroppe, Mickey Thompson, Parnelli Jones, James Garner, Rick Mears, Walker Evans, Ivan Stewart, and Rod Hall. He built products to hold up to the rigors of off road racing while making them accessible to everyone. Supplying parts for friends in California and customers across the country soon grew into a full-time business—Duffy’s Bronco Service.
Racing gave way to family four wheeling when the family grew from two to four. It was
during this time that James created the Pony Express, a project he could work on in the back yard at home. James & Judy helped form the first Bronco only club -Broncos West 4WD Club in West Los Angeles, California.
They frequented the Sand Dunes at Pismo Beach, Glamis, Borrego Springs and other [Pismo Beach] Southern California desert spots with the Pony dune runner and Judy's '66 wagon with the custom kid seats in the back.
After a devastating fire during the height of the gas crunch, they reluctantly sold off the majority of the product line to MickeyThompson Shocks. Luckily, MT didn’t appreciate the Bronco parts and Judy carried on selling parts out of the garage as Broncoholic Accessories.
A life altering vacation to Sequim, Washington, brought upon a change and with the move came a new name, James Duff Enterprises, Inc.
Second Generation
The second generation of Duffs grew up in the business. Suzy started addressing catalog envelopes and packaging bushings at eight years-old and when she turned sixteen, Judy's '84 Bronco II became Suzanne's first wheels. Right from the beginning James started maximizing the potential of these vehicles and immediately started designing and making parts for the Bronco II & Rangers. [Duff Kids] Before getting his license, Richard decided to resurrect the remains of a ‘77 we had in the back yard. He and James spent many hours together building up “Hi Ho Silver”. Its buildup lead to the development of many of our products and it still does today. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention! When Richard went off to school, he left the Bronco in Suzy’s trusty hands. Since then, she has taken it from a half cab to a soft top and from old school to new technology!
As you can see, the whole family was pretty stoked about the addition of fuel injection to the 351W in December 2002! Since then she took it up to 5 1/2” of suspension lift with 2” of body lift and given it a new look with her own paint with help from Dad! After a few good years of hard use (abuse) the Bronco II was sporting a new 302 V8 and it's real personality started to show. Suzanne decided to retire the Bronco II for a complete rebuild. It resurfaced again on the trails, bigger and badder! She chose a '94 Ranger Super Cab to replace it and the next series of parts were begun.
These days, Richard lives in China where he works as a designer for GM (yes, we know it was hard to take with our blue blood). The 2010 Buick LaCrosse is his first production work to hit the road. Judy finally got to turn over the reigns to Suzanne, retire, and has finally gotten to attend some events. James spends as much time as he can traveling to events on both coasts, tinkering in the shop, restoring the rigs (he finished the Pony Express restification just in time for the 40th Anniversary celebrations) and lend his technical hand to the development of new Bronco products.
The Not So Hostile Takeover
As the new company president, one of Suzanne’s first tough decisions was to move the company to a bigger city as they had just plain outgrown Sequim. She had visited Knoxville several times while on wheeling trips to Tellico, Wheelin’ in the Country and visiting the folks at Bronco Driver Magazine. She really liked the area and the Southern Hospitality. Ultimately it was chosen because of its central location for shipping times and rates for customers and being a larger city it offers a wealth of suppliers for our manufacturing needs.
Halloween of 2012 marked six years since our move and we are finding Knoxville to be a great new home. Four wheeling in the East brought us to discover new needs-- thus the creation of the new Hi Ho Loco-- a big sister/evil twin to Silver. Narrowed 8”, sporting full width Dana 60 front and Sterling 10.25” rear axle donated from a 1992 F350 mounted to 42" Iroks on OMF Beadlocked Walker Evans wheels. A well built 351W stroked to 408 with Howell Fuel Injection, an Atlas Transfer case, C6. Suspension is our Monster Kit with our Long Travel Radius Arms, Full Width Coil buckets and our 4 link Suspension in the back.
Suzy even managed to get Dad to help her do another custom paint job right in the shop for a birthday present! Its evolution has led to another whole series of new products.
Just after our sixth anniversary in town, we moved into a bigger building down the street! We finally have a showroom to display our rolling chassis and over 45 years of our memorabilia. We also have room for the Broncos to all be parked inside instead of stashed all over town in different garages, so you can see them in person. Being in the crossroads of major interstates, we get a lot more people stopping in to visit than we did in Sequim. But if you can’t make to us, odds are you’ll see Suzanne at one of the events featured in the catalog that she attends throughout the country with her good ol’ standby co-pilot Ben (the dog).
One of our latest changes is the elimination of the yellow zinc plating that has been our signature for years. Enviromental restrictions are making this process more rare so we've been switching more and more to silver zinc or powder coating as a result. You will also see the addition of silver vein to our Radius Arms due to customer suggestions. We are always trying to listen to you and are certainly open to product suggestions! Also, please don’t be offended when you get your shipment, we are trying to use as recycled packaging materials whenever possible.
Thanks for your interest in our company! We wouldn’t still be here after 45 years if it wasn’t for our wonderful customers! We hope to see you on the trails!
We're continually adding great people to our staff. These people, along with the rest of our staff in Customer Service, Manufacturing and Shipping are dedicated to making the best products available to you in OUR NEW HOME IN KNOXVILLE, TN!
James Duff inc.
6609 Bronco Dr., Knoxville, TN 37921
Phone: 1-865-938-6696
7am-3pm M-F West Coast
10am-6pm M-F East Coast
Fax: 1-865-938-6746
24 Hours