The road begins.
Just a frame, a road, and one quiet idea.
If you are reading this in the first days, thank you for being early. The build is empty for now. That is the point — it gets filled in by the people who choose to be part of it.
— R
"For three years I have been doing the same math. Three years of car-sharing rides home from forests I could not afford to reach."
A live stage of the people who chose to be part of this. The bigger the contribution, the larger and longer the name lingers. Anonymous donors are honored on the totals, but not displayed by name here — because they asked not to be.
Every name on the supporters list adds a visible piece to the 3D Bronco below. The vehicle is the sum of their choices — every wheel, every light, every panel waits for someone to bring it into existence.
A real-time feed of pieces arriving. Top contributors, ranked. Anonymous donors honored equally — because the wall does not distinguish between a name and a silence, only between someone who chose to be part of this and someone who did not.
Road to Bronco is not a charity. It is not a startup. It is not a campaign for anything bigger than itself.
It is one person — a thirty-year-old freelance programmer in Latgale, the eastern edge of Latvia — quietly trying to build the vehicle he has wanted for three years.
Three years of thinking about it. Three years of doing the math in spreadsheets and notebooks. Three years of watching the math refuse to work. Three years of car-sharing rides home from the forests that he could not afford to reach by his own wheels — paying by the minute for vehicles built for cities, while dreaming about ones built for places that aren't on the map.
The simple version is that he could not save enough. Freelance income in Latvia is not bad, but it is not large, and a large part of it goes home — toward family who needs help. Three years of trying to set aside enough for a serious off-road vehicle, and three years of watching savings fail to compound the way that calculators promised they would.
So this is the workaround. The only one that felt honest, and the only one that could be done from a chair in front of a laptop, alone, with no audience. Build the dream in code first. Let people see it grow. Let it become real the way it started — quietly, one piece at a time, by people who chose to be part of it.
Some build cars in garages.
I'm building mine in a browser.
A confession about being seen — and why some people work better when they're not.
I am real. My first name is Rihards. I live in Latgale. I have been writing code for fifteen years — half my life. I work as a freelancer. I live alone.
I have been shy since I was a child. The kind of shy that does not go away. The kind that makes a person comfortable behind a keyboard and uncomfortable in a room with more than four other people. I have never stood in front of an audience without my voice going somewhere it does not belong. I have never enjoyed being looked at.
I have had social media accounts in my own name, more than once, and I left every single one of them. Not because anything went wrong. Not because of any incident or backlash or troll. Just because being seen — by people who could find me, who knew my last name, who could put a face to a profile — never felt right.
I have not told anyone in my life that I am doing this project. Not my family. Not my closest friends. Not the people I have coffee with. Only the internet knows. Only you.
That sounds strange to say. It probably is strange. But there is a kind of freedom in being seen by strangers and not by the people who know you. The pressure is different. The fear of judgment is different. There is no risk of a dinner table going quiet because you said something honest. I can be more honest here, faceless, with strangers, than I have ever been able to be in person.
Staying faceless is not hiding. It is the only way I can do this at all.
The code, the build, the hands that write it, the forests, the road, the journey.
My face, my full name, the exact place where I live, the names of my family, my voice unmodulated.
I do not remember the film. I just remember the shape.
A car that didn't look like the cars I saw on the street in Latgale. Square. Honest. Not pretending to be sleek. Not trying to convince anyone of anything.
A silhouette that said: I belong where the road ends. It stayed with me. For years it would pull at something I couldn't name.
The thinking became a folder of bookmarks. The folder became a spreadsheet of prices. The spreadsheet became a quiet, recurring grief — because the numbers refused to land.
Latgale is full of places the asphalt does not reach. Forests behind dirt tracks. Lakes you cannot find on Google Maps. Bog paths that swallow normal cars whole. The most beautiful country I will ever live in is the country I cannot fully see — because I do not have a vehicle that can take me there.
Right now, when I need to drive, I rent a car-sharing car. Hourly. By the minute. The kind of cars made for cities and supermarkets, not for the places I actually want to be in.
A Bronco Wildtrak is not the only vehicle that could change this. There are others, probably cheaper, probably more practical. But it is the one that has stayed in my head since I was a kid. The shape that comes back, again and again, when I think about driving somewhere quiet and disappearing for a day.
So that is the dream. Honest, specific, and — for now — a 3D model on this screen that fills in piece by piece, every time someone decides it is worth being part of.
Road to Bronco is an independent personal project. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, or connected to Ford Motor Company in any way. "Ford" and "Bronco" are trademarks of their respective owners.
I cannot save for it the normal way. I have tried. Three years of trying.
Freelance income in Latvia is steady, but it is not the kind of income that lets a person set aside ten thousand euros a year toward a luxury that is not a necessity.
The bills get paid. The rent gets paid. The food gets bought. And then a substantial portion of what is left goes home — toward family who depends on me being able to send something when something is needed.
This is not a complaint. This is just the arithmetic of a particular life. Many people in Latvia live this way. Many people in the world live this way.
So I'm doing the only thing I know how to do well.
I have written code for fifteen years. Half my life, building things for other people, in private, on contract, with my name on no homepage and my face on no team page.
This is the first thing that is just mine, in public, where anyone can see it and choose to be part of it.
If it works, I will have proven something I have wanted to prove for a long time — that a quiet programmer with no audience and no face can put something into the world and have it matter.
If it does not work, then I will have tried, in a way that three years of silent saving never let me try.
No rewards. No tiers that unlock things. No merch waiting in the wings. No newsletter you cannot escape. Just three small, honest steps — the kind of project that does what it says, and stops there.
€1 or €100. Through Ko-fi, Revolut, PayPal, or a direct bank transfer — whichever is simplest. Anonymously, or with a name. A message attached, or none. All of it your choice. Always.
Every euro becomes one visible piece of the 3D Bronco above. The chassis appears at five percent. The wheels at ten. The body, the lights, the badges — all in order. You can watch it happen, live, within thirty seconds of your decision.
When the goal is reached, the real Bronco gets bought. The first faceless trip into a Latgale forest gets filmed and posted here. The story gets told. The same way it started — quietly, in code, by the people who chose to be part of it.
There are no rewards. No special access. No private Discord. No merchandise. The only thing you get is your piece on the build — and, if you want it, your name on the wall, beside every other person who chose to be here.
Every €1 becomes 1 piece. No minimum. No maximum. The build doesn't care which tier you choose — only that you chose.
ADD A PIECE ON KO-FI →Card or PayPal. Updates the build in seconds via webhook. The smoothest path — no account required, no friction.
Direct transfer within seconds for Revolut users. Zero fees inside the EU. The build updates manually within 24 hours after confirmation.
Standard PayPal donation. Useful for international supporters outside the EU. The build updates manually within 24 hours.
Every milestone unlocks something visible — a new part of the build, a new chapter of the story. The orange marker is where the build is now. The checked markers are what the supporters have already brought into existence.
The project goes live. Just a frame, a road, and one quiet idea.
Frame appears under the silhouette. The build officially starts.
One wheel rolls in. The vehicle is no longer floating.
The body panels arrive. The vehicle starts looking like itself.
Doors, mirrors, handles. Small things that matter.
Closed in. A real silhouette.
The lights turn on. The build looks alive at night.
Tires, bars, bumpers. Ready for trails.
The build is complete. The real vehicle gets bought. The first faceless trip into the forest is filmed and posted here.
Everyone who chose to be visible. Names, messages, and pieces — in the order they arrived, with no hierarchy other than time. Anonymous donors are honored separately, on the totals, but not named here. The wall respects what people chose to show.
What's happening, when it happens. The good days. The slow weeks. The quiet ones. Written by the builder, posted here in plain words, no marketing softening the edges.
When the build hits one hundred percent, I will buy the real Bronco.
The first place I will drive it is somewhere in Latgale where the road runs out — a forest near a lake I have wanted to see for years, a place I have looked at on maps and never been able to reach because the car I had was the wrong car for the job.
I will film it. Faceless. The same way this started. The hands on the steering wheel. The trees passing by the windows. The road getting worse, then disappearing entirely, then becoming a path, and then becoming nothing at all but a direction.
The lake at the end. The silence. The dog, if there is a dog by then. The sound of nothing for a few minutes.
And then I think I will be able to do something I have been afraid of for fifteen years.
I will start making real content about code — the kind of content I have always wanted to make and never made, because making it requires standing in front of an audience, and standing in front of an audience requires confidence, and confidence requires having put something into the world and seen that it mattered.
That is what this project is really for. The Bronco is the dream. But the proof — that a person like me can put a thing into the world, and strangers can choose to be part of it — that is what changes everything afterwards.
— R
Yes. I'm Rihards, thirty years old, in Latgale, Latvia. I'm a freelance programmer who has been writing code for fifteen years. I just won't put my face online. The supporters, the build, the goal — all real.
I've been shy my whole life — the kind of shy that does not improve with effort or age. I had social media accounts in my own name and I left them all, not because anything went wrong, but because being publicly visible never felt right. Staying faceless is the only way this project exists at all.
Every €1 becomes 1 piece. The 3D Bronco above has twelve part categories that reveal in order as donations come in. Chassis at 5%, wheels at 10%, body at 25%, and so on. When you donate, the percentage recalculates within thirty seconds.
Yes. You can drag to rotate it, scroll to zoom in, and watch it build piece by piece as donations come in.
Through Ko-fi (the easiest, accepts cards and PayPal), or Revolut, PayPal, or direct bank transfer. All four methods work. Ko-fi is fastest because the webhook updates the page in seconds.
Yes, completely. Pick "anonymous" on Ko-fi, or just don't leave a name. Your piece still counts.
No. No merchandise. No NFT. No "rewards tier." No special access. Just your piece on the build and (if you want) your name on the wall.
No. Road to Bronco is an independent personal project, not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Ford Motor Company.
The project stays online either way. If the goal is not reached, I do not buy the vehicle. The funds remain documented on the transparency page, and I publicly decide — with supporters informed — what to do with them.
The slideshow photos at the top are my own photographs of Latgale. The 3D Bronco model is real (and properly licensed — see the footer). Atmospheric images may be AI-generated and labeled.
No. This is a personal project, not a registered charity. Donations are gifts to an individual and are not tax-deductible.
Yes, within fourteen days of your donation, no questions asked. Email hello@roadtobronco.com.
You'll see it on the build log, and (if you left an email when donating) you'll get exactly one email when that happens. Just one. No marketing.
hello@roadtobronco.com — every message gets read.
Questions. Ideas. Doubts. Hellos from places I have never been. Every message gets read by me, not by a bot, not by a moderator. The form below sends directly to my inbox.
There is no support team. No autoresponder. No tickets. Just a single email address that goes to a single person, somewhere in Latgale, who reads every message that arrives — sometimes within an hour, sometimes within a week.
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