March has come and gone, and we still don’t have a real, official picture of the Ford Bronco. Sure, we know what it’s basically going to look like, we have guesses at the powertrain and other features, but Ford-sponsored info has been slow — another reason the coronavirus is making 2020 the worst year ever. We just talked to Ford insiders, who said, “we’ll share more info as soon as we can.” If you haven’t heard, the company is a little busy right now, partaking in a new war effort for the 21st century.
As for the reveal, we’re going to see the bigger Bronco first, which was supposed to happen last month. Then in April, which we’re already in, we were slated to see the smaller Bronco, possibly named the Maverick. That doesn’t look to be happening now. Like Mopar, the Bronco cousins will get a ton of factory backed accessories for on and off-road adventures. There will be two- and four-door versions of the body-on-frame big Bronco. The smaller Bronco Sport will probably be a rugged, unibody crossover, sporting a 1.5-liter I3 or a two-liter four. The big Bronco will also get solid front and rear axles, and we know it will share a platform with the Ford Ranger pickup. We’re also hoping for news of a Bronco Raptor version, which the Bronco6G forum says we could see in 2023.
On the powertrain front, we’re expecting a 2.3-liter turbo four as a base Bronco engine and possibly Ford’s 2.7-liter EcoBoost V6 in more expensive and sportier Bronco models. Power should range from somewhere in the 200s to somewhere in the 300s. The 2.7 makes 325 hp in the Ford F-150, with 400 lb-ft of torque. We also heard rumors of a seven-speed manual transmission, but until we see it for ourselves, we’re unlikely to believe such a thing would make its way into the new Bronco.
We also know that the Bronco will go racing, again. One of Ford’s early PR releases was of the Bronco R built for tackling the Baja 1000. Ford even added a video of it ripping across the desert. Unfortunately, the Bronco R didn’t finish.
That’s where everything Bronco stands, as of now. Everything is delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak, and the pessimists among us think if we see the big Bronco this year it’ll be a surprise. Hopefully by early 2021 we’ll see both Bronco and Bronco Sport, possibly as late as the Chicago Auto Show.
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