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Ford invited us out to Holly, Michigan, last week to celebrate the Bronco’s 55th birthday and to enjoy a socially distanced, masked-up ride in both the new Bronco Sport and Bronco 2-door at a soon-to-be-opened off-road park. It was our first experience inside the new Wrangler-fighter and from what we saw and felt, the new pair of Broncos promises to be the perfect tool for tackling dust, sand, rocks and water.
The day started with a quick lap in the original Bronco race car that raced and won at the Baja 1000 with Rod Hall behind the wheel. Hall’s granddaughter Shelby gave us a hot lap of the hilly and sandy course. The first thing that came to mind in the caged, lifted, beefed up Bronco was the acronym GOAT, which Ford is using heavily in the new Bronco marketing material.
It means “goes over any terrain” and the Bronco race car, which didn’t feel as fast as I expected, still exemplified that mantra. Going up the 40-degree angle sand course, the classic Bronco grunted and groaned and squeaked, but never stopped moving. We didn’t get out of second gear in the quick run, but Bronco exhibited paddle-wheeled sand-tractor-levels of I-won’t-be-stopped. It was also bladder-crushing levels of bouncy.
Ford brought out a little museum setup to show off some of the old Bronco marketing material, including some never before seen documents from the birthplace of Bronco. It also featured some Bronco toys, ‘70s magazines and obviously some documentation from the O.J. Simpson chase. Did you know that one of the Popemobiles was also a specially built Bronco? Neither did we.
Then, it was time. We jumped into a Bronco Sport Badlands first. That’s the most off-road capable trim of the smaller, crossover-based Bronco. This one featured the 2.0-liter turbo four, and far from feeling weak around the course, in those off-road modes, where the traction control allows some slip, it was a boxy mountain lion with enough power to climb the steepest of hills and squeezed around the narrowest of tracks.
The turbo four sounded great too. As the tires spit sand in every direction, the growl sounded much louder than it does when housed under the hood of the Ford Escape, with which the Bronco Sport shares a platform. The masked-up driver left the transmission in automatic mode, and never had to back up or realign. Trail Control, which is like cruise control for off-road, pulled the Bronco Sport up impossibly steep hills, and helped gently creep down them as well by dabbing whatever brakes were necessary to keep the vehicle straight. These were pre-production vehicles, so some of the switchgear, like the GOAT mode dial didn’t look exactly like it will in dealer sold vehicles. But no matter, it was already impressive.
There were six different stations at the event and I was last in line to get into the two-door Bronco. This is the one that the hardest of hardcore off roaders will pick. It had the big, 35-inch tires, the roof was off and under the hood was the 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 EcoBoost engine making 310 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque. It also wore the ten-speed automatic transmission, the only trans available with the bigger engine. Side note, a lot of the off-road guys swear by the automatic.
This Bronco was everything you’d hope for, and more. Unlike the Bronco Sport, the Bronco could speed up those same sandy hills, only bogging down when the surface got really soft. I wasn’t thinking about a speedy, Baja-style Bronco before, but now I could see Ford doing that. It’s three-quarters of the way there already.
The course was a cinch for the short, two-door Bronco and the front camera came in handy when cresting those blind hills. I hadn’t done any serious off roading until about ten years ago, and a few years after that front cameras became almost ubiquitous. They might be the most useful new tool in the off roaders box.
The Bronco easily grumbled over logs and rocks, and blasted through a 2-foot deep water hazard without a hitch. Well, a bunch of water did splash onto me in the cabin without the roof, but it was actually a blessing on a 90-degree day in Michigan. We also used the Trail Turn Assist function, which in the sand almost allows the Bronco to pivot around one wheel using torque vectoring and the brakes. It allows the Bronco to get around super tight trails without backing up and resetting.
Both ride-alongs were quick, and all it really did was whet our collective appetites for more seat time, preferably behind the wheel. But it did solidify the idea that the bigger (than the Sport) Bronco two-door with the Badlands package would be the one to buy if you’re a serious off-road enthusiast. I guess the surprise of the event was the Bronco Sport, which is far from the mall-crushing poser we originally envisioned. Expect a first real drive later this year.
