Ford is reportedly no longer planning to build a Bronco-based truck that would have been a Jeep Gladiator competitor. The truck would’ve come out in 2024 or thereabouts, but now, apparently, will not be coming out at all.
From Automotive News:
Ford Motor Co. has scrapped plans to build a pickup version of the Bronco off-road SUV, according to two sources knowledgeable about the decision.
The automaker planned to introduce a Bronco-based pickup in 2024 but in recent months has informed suppliers the program was canceled, the sources told Automotive News. It was to be built at the same plant that assembles as the Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup in Wayne, Mich.
Ford spokesman Mike Levine declined to comment on the company’s future product portfolio but noted that “we continue to see strong demand for our full portfolio of rugged trucks and SUVs, including Bronco-brand utilities and our bestselling Ford truck lineup.”
Ford makes the full-size F-150, the midsize Ranger and the midsize Maverick, and the Bronco-based truck, if Ford made it, would likely have been something bigger than midsize but not exactly full-size. The truck was reportedly being fast-tracked this time last year, and, now that it is no longer, that is an indication of either the nimbleness of Ford, the unreliability of some car media, or both.
And while Auto News says that Ford is not making the Bronco pickup because of too much overlap with the Ranger, I suspect what’s also happening here is that Ford looked at the anemic sales of the Jeep Gladiator and thought to itself: No thanks. Jeep sold more Gladiators in 2020 than they did in 2019, but that is in part because Gladiator didn’t start selling until well into 2019, and Gladiator also finished 2020 as Jeep’s second-slowest-selling vehicle, ahead of only the Renegade, a car that has been barely updated in seven years.
So long, Bronco pickup, we never even knew ye.
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