When I gushed on my socials that I loved the new Bronco, a FB friend of mine said they had one and loved it. Thing is, they have one of these Bronco Sports and not the real McDeal. Sorry, these might be your atypical, modern, do everything exceptionally well crossover, but this ain't no Bronco. It's a dressed-up Escape.
I guess in a world where sedans no longer exist, or are rapidly becoming extinct, the auto companies feel compelled to keep slicing and dicing the same onion to come up with as many different variations of something as possible. But why call this "Bronco"? It's a marketing sub-branding thing I don't understand and this one is more confusing than Ford festooning "Mustang" on an EV crossover.
Ford has an unabashed hit on their hands with their transcendental, Ranger pickup truck-based Bronco. I'm a huge fan of the two-door models, I'll take one in any color and equipment level. Their sticker prices freak me out but I'm in the minority feeling that way apparently. Ford will move more than 125,000 Broncos this year and about the same number of "Sports", so it seems the buying public doesn't have a problem with their nosebleed stickers and these "Sports" having the "Bronco" pre-fix.
Nissan does something similar with their Rogues. There's the regular Rogue and now a smaller version, that looks nothing like the big boy, they call Rogue Sport. What am I missing here? GM may reboot nameplates, but they'd never tamper with what "Corvette", "Camaro" or "Silverado" mean.
If there's any issue at Ford these days it's that sales of their very competent, although fairly anonymous looking Escape, that, again, these Bronco Sports are based on, are down. And based on the popularity of the Bronco Sport, it seems the only thing holding it back from completely clobbering the Escape is supply chain issues. Ford can't build Bronco Sports fast enough meanwhile there's a glut of Escapes out there. And folks are more than willing to pay the stiff tariff over the Escape to get a Bronco Sport.
If they called it "Escape Sport", which to me would make as much sense as Nissan calling their new smaller Rogue, Rogue "Sport", would it sell as well? That's a fair question. And one that's going to be tough to answer especially when sales are as hot as they are for the Bronco Sport. Are the vast, unaware masses simply sucked into a subjectively "cooler" pre-fix? What if they called this something completely different? Seeing the "Bronco" and "Maverick" nameplates have been rehashed, why not call this, "Torino"? What's in a name anyway.
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