Before anything, Frank Stephenson isn’t your average car designer. He worked his magic at MINI, McLaren, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Maserati, Ferrari, and BMW, and regarding the latter, Stephenson is the guy who penned the first-ever BMW utility vehicle, the X5.
Quite a portfolio, indeed, but what does Frank think about the hottest utility vehicle of the moment? Although he’s not a big fan of this body style, the 2021 Ford Bronco is an “8.9 out of 10” on his personal design evaluation scale. One of the reasons for this remarkably high score is “the softness that I find very appealing.”
Stephenson further highlights “that element of freedom” that Ford built into the all-new Bronco despite the “purpose-driven design” with removable doors. “It’s not your everyday car but it’s a vehicle that I can imagine a lot of people buying for the message that it delivers,” a feat that sounds particularly familiar to Jeep owners.
“It’s gonna be one of the best in its class if not the best in the segment,” added Frank, who appreciates the front-end design a lot. “I don’t consider it as retro; I consider it as a much improved version of the original Bronco” from the ‘60s.
Speaking of which, have you noticed something strange about the marketing campaign of the body-on-frame utility vehicle with pickup truck underpinnings? The Blue Oval is shying away from mentioning how many generations were built between the first and this one, which is considered as the sixth in the lineage.
Truth be told, Ford has a good reason for not mentioning what happened in that time frame because it’s pretty obvious. The competition got better and better with each passing year, and the Bronco has been at the center of the Firestone scandal and O.J. Simpson controversy. Indeed, it’s a pretty spotty history in hindsight.
On that note, remember the Bronco II compact SUV produced from the 1984 to 1990 model years with Ranger underpinnings? Ford knew since the design phase that rollovers would be a problem, and when modifications were suggested, the higher-ups in Dearborn declined the safety upgrades that were dearly needed.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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