Judging from the interest in the upcoming Ford Bronco, the Dearborn automaker is onto something. Early Broncos, in both stock and restomod form, are on fire at the moment, and Ford is poised to capitalize on this when the model is reborn in spring 2020 (assuming, of course, the final product lives up to the hype).

Borrowing from the back catalog is hardly a new idea, but as automakers have learned, recapturing lightning in a bottle is a tricky thing to do. The reborn 2002 Ford Thunderbird, for example, ticked all the right nostalgia boxes, but offered up little else to buyers. It wasn’t powerful or nimble enough to be a sports car, it wasn’t practical enough to be a daily driver, and parts bin pilferage kept the car from feeling particularly special or upscale. Ford’s last Thunderbird experiment ended in 2005, after just four model years.

What other vehicles would have the Bronco effect, and not the Thunderbird treatment?