If there are two things certain about the biggest Ford legends from the 1970s is that they never die and both of their names are related to horses. We are of course talking about the Mustang and the Bronco, both original models having been developed by the same man.
Almost a decade later, the Mustang continues to play a pivotal role in the Ford family, while the Bronco nameplate has been out of production since 1996 after slowly fading in popularity.
It's 2020, and the Blue Oval has decided to honor its most famous off-roader by launching a brand spanking new generation of the Bronco to go head-to-head against the highly successful Jeep Wrangler and all its versions.
Based on a heavily reworked version of the Ranger pickup platform, the 2021 Ford Bronco family will feature both a short-wheelbase three-door model and an LWB version with five doors.
Ford wants to make sure that the nameplate's return will translate into buyers of all walks of life and not just people who modify their vehicles for rock-climbing and/or mudding and for some peculiar reason are against the Jeep Wrangler. This is why there will also be a Ford Bronco Sport, a unibody crossover based on the latest Ford Escape/Kuga platform but with an exterior design heavily inspired by its big brother.
This week we received new spy photos of the big Bronco in five-door and convertible attire, with spy photographers managing to snap some parts of the interior and also show use the SUV's suspension on both axles.
The inside seems to show a tubular roll-over safety structure underneath the makeshift roof, which is much taller on the prototypes than on the production vehicle.
Photo: S.Baldauf/SB-Medien
That said, it's underneath the car where die-hard Bronco and off-roading fans will find something deeply unsettling – an independent front suspension, which makes lifting the car for serious off-roading a lot more difficult.
The fixed rear axle seems to feature a heavy-duty diff-lock and a Panhard bar but doesn't look like it can handle a lot of hardcore rock-crawling in its stock form. A Jeep Wrangler Rubicon may have it already beat at this point in time, but we don't yet know how many versions will be available on the Bronco eventually.
Set to be unveiled sometime this spring, the new Bronco is likely to be powered by a 2.7-liter EcoBoost V6, while its crossover Bronco Sport brother may get a 1.5-liter and a 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder. There is no word of any "off-road" package that can truly transform the body-on-frame model into a Wrangler Rubicon Nemesis as of yet but things might look better when the car is officially unveiled.
Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project. Full profile
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