2022 Ford Bronco - Coal In My Stocking

Leave it to my wife to not pick up on my not-so-subtle hints that I wanted a two-door Ford Bronco for Christmas. I've only been openly clamoring for one since they first came out back in 2019 for model year 2020 and this year, with my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS not only passing the 250,000-mile marker but is now hard charging towards 300K, I pushed harder than ever. Alas, there was no Bronco in my driveway with a big red bow on top Christmas morning. She got me golf stuff instead. Shoot, she might as well have put coal in my stocking. 

Of course, I'm kidding. Asking someone to surprise you with a vehicle is a lot of pressure to put on them. Especially if that person is a "car-person" like me who will scrutinize every single last detail and suck all the joy out of the moment. So much can go wrong. Especially with a vehicle that's more configurable than a 1970's Cadillac. 

For 2023 Ford offers no less than ten-different "Broncos". There's the base Bronco, the Big Bend, Black Diamond, Outer Banks, Badlands, Wild Trak, Everglades, Raptor, Heritage and lastly, but certainly not least expensively, the Bronco Heritage Limited. All of these different iterations available with an insane amount of option packages and accessories pushing the sticker price from approximately $32,000 to just under, $110,000. Holy-Sasquatch!

I haven't even drilled down on a specific color I'd want to say nothing about whether I should opt for a "Kayak Roof Rack" or "Front Bumper Winch". What if she got me the "Tube Doors" when I really wanted the "Bimini Soft Top"? Would she think to ask if she could get the base Bronco with the Raptor's 418-horsepower engine? What about asking if the Oxford White wheels from the Heritage model are available on the base model too? 

While my wife is the most intelligent person I know, there is the distinct possibility as well as she may come home with a completely different Bronco called the Bronco Sport. Why Ford came out with two different vehicles that share the same first name is a real head scratcher; supposedly it's all about "building the brand".  Then again, these are the same folks who festoon "Mustang" to an all-electric crossover. For the record, the Bronco Sport is based off the latest iteration of the (very capable) Ford Escape meanwhile my beloved Bronco is built off the current Ford Ranger pickup truck chassis. Might sound trivial, but it's the difference between what's defined as a "truck" these days and a "tall car". 

I haven't even driven one yet to have any idea what version I'd want; can you test drive each of the ten versions? Therefore, my appreciation of these things is purely visceral, like that crush I had on the captain of the cheer leading squad in high school whom I never spoke a word to. I want one just because I think they're cool looking. Gosh, what if my wife got me one and when I drove it, in my heart of hearts that all-knowing, painfully honest little voice in my head said, "I hate this thing". Been there done that and let me tell you, that's not fun and such experiences have led my wife and I to both suffer from an all but paralyzing fear of "buyer's remorse".  

These things aren't cheap either. Glancing quickly at spec sheets and sales brochures I figure I'd want a "Badlands", two-door, with the 2.7-liter, "Ecoboost" V-6, 10-speed automatic, "Full Time AWD",  "4.7" axle, "mid-package" equipment group, "Sasquatch" package, retractable top, "bash plates" (I have no idea what they are, but they sound cool), Marine Grade, heated vinyl seats, SYNC 4 "voice recognition" and the whole thing slathered in "Area 51" (it's a grey blue) paint. Total, before taxes and fees but with destination charges is a not-as-much as I thought it would be $53,300. Yeah, not as much as I thought but that's still an eff-ton of money. 

The handy-dandy calculator on the Ford.com website guesstimates my\our monthly payment at $906 a month for sixty-months. Whoa. That's with ten-percent down and 5% APR too. Throw in taxes, whatever nonsensical dealer installed accessories I'd have to have and we're pushing $60,000. Say that slowly and it sounds like even more. Sixty. Thousand. Dollars. Good grief. With no money down for sixty months, I'm looking at around $1,200 a month. Ford can stretch the payments out to seventy-two months (six-years!) that would drop payments down to around a grand-a-month. I've seen some car companies offer up to eighty-four monthly payments. Allow me to examine the head of anyone who'd think that's a good idea. 

This, meaning my acquisition of a new or late model Ford Bronco, will never happen. They're just too damn expensive. Now, granted, and at the risk of humble bragging, we can afford these payments, but my wife and I choose not to. And there's a certain empowerment to choosing not to that most people, sadly, either ignore or don't realize is a viable option for them. Leasing doesn't make sense either since lease payments for thirty-six months are quite similar to sixty purchase payments; leasing longer is an even bigger waste of money especially if the buyout is exorbitant. Which it most like will be to get love-struck Jamokes into a vehicle they shouldn't be in. 

What to do then? Well, we wait. We wait for something catastrophic to happen to the ole "Dale" and then we'll make the most prudent, cost-efficient decision we can. And, again, that decision will most certainly not be for a Ford Bronco "Badlands". No matter how much (I think) I want one. 

1986 Ford Bronco II - II Tippy

Back in the '70's, Ford had a habit of using "II" when they'd launch either new versions of an existing nameplate or an accompanying model to one. For 1974 they launched their diminutive, Pinto-based "Mustang II" and for 1977 they rechristened their intermediate but still elephantine 1972 vintage Torino as the "LTD II"; which they sold alongside the still full-size and ginormous LTD which wouldn't be shrunk until 1979. For 1984, seemingly long after the Great Downsizing Epoch had subsided, Ford rolled out a compact sport utility vehicle they labeled, "Bronco II". Our blocky, stubby subject is a 1986. 

Based on the then current (1982) Ford Ranger pickup truck chassis, just like the current Bronco is Ranger based, the Bronco II was dimensionally all but identical to the first Bronco Ford peddled between 1966 and 1977. If you blurred your eyes a little and went with the flow, you could say that it was a spiritual updating to the first Bronco that is now one of the hottest and most desired "vintage" vehicles out there today. If you don't blur your eyes or go with the flow, ahem, you just didn't get what the Bronco II was all about. I didn't and still don't. 1966-1977 Bronco's? Oh. Hell yeah. One of these? Err, no. 

The fact I didn't get what the "II" was all about makes my appreciation of the current model all the more amazing. I'm from Long Island; I don't "get" anything truck. The new Bronco, again, I'm referring to the "Bronco" and not the fancy Ford Escape they call "Bronco Sport", is a transcendental design that is so wonderful, the masses are throwing themselves into financial harms to have one. Despite the fact that they are about as practical as a Ford Mustang II. Yeah, yeah. I know that's more than a slight exaggeration, but I say that to illustrate my point. Your opinion may vary. See dealer for details. 

Any "cool" (subjective) that the '66-'77 Bronco had was lost on the 1984-1990 "II". The proportions and any semblance of balance are actually better with the II, but therein lies most of the charm of the original Bronco that the current one successfully apes. The original is a weird, clumsy, disproportional design that has a butch, industrial syncopation to it. Let's understand, however, that often times good design doesn't work aesthetically. For instance, better "design" is what made General Motors downsized 1978 intermediates so damn boring. There was no whimsy, no spirit, no elan. And any semblance of it, like what they tried to do with the 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix, came across as grossly pretensious. 

What the Bronco II is best or worst remembered for, however, is not its design, folks actually loved it and bought nearly three-quarters of a million of them between 1984 and 1990, but its propensity to rollover. In short, because of the "II's" center of gravity versus its width being proportionally at odds, it's "Stability Index" was sorely off. "II's" look "tippy", and they were. Ford paid some $113 million in 334 wrongful death and injury settlements; some accounts say more than 800 people were killed in "II's" that rolled over and one in five sold between 1984-1990 was involved in a rollover. Wow. Ford apparently knew about the issue even during the "II's" design phase in the early 1980's but they went forward with it because it would have been too expensive to engineer out the problems with the suspension. 

It got so bad for the "II" that Geico refused to write policies for them. 

My only first-hand experience in one was as a back seat passenger in one a friend of a friend had back in the late '80's. Again, I'm no "truck" girl, bit I found the whole the utterly ridiculous. Along with it being oh-so-bouncy, especially in the back seat, I thought the whole thing felt like it was riding on giant balloons. Which in fact it was in reality. If I was going to do a "truck" back in the day, and I had to have a Ford, it would have been an "O.J. Bronco" although it would have been in black or dark red. Then again, give me a Chevy K5 Blazer.  

The Ford Explorer, that replaced the Bronco II in 1991, had similar rollover propensity issues until Ford sorted it out with a wider track and an independent rear suspension. In...2002. Along with "O.J.'s Bronco", is it any wonder why Ford waited twenty-five to come with another SUV they called Bronco? 

 

Ford's New Bronco - I Want One

A family down the block from us just got one of these new Ford Bronco's. Just like this in whatever hue of grey blue this is too. And I want one. Bad. That's saying a lot too since in general I'm not even a cross-over kind of girl let alone a "trucker". These are "trucks" seeing their based on the mid-size Ford Ranger pickup truck. 

It's interesting to note that Ford used their original Bronco of 1966-1977 fame as the inspiration for their new Bronco as there's not a shred of what those of a particular vintage refer to as, "O.J.'s Bronco" in it. Then again, "O.J.'s Bronco", like all Ford Bronco's made after 1977, are far less distinctive looking than the originals. If anything, there's a whole lot more 1984-1990 Bronco II in these new Bronco's, especially the two-door models, than "O.J. Bronco". Then again, Ford probably doesn't want buyers of these new Broncos googling "Bronco II" any more than they want them googling "O.J. Bronco". 

The design of this new Bronco is so good, Ford could have it called it "Simpson", and it would still be, arguably, the hottest new vehicle on the market today. I know people who've waited eighteen months for theirs to come in. That they call it something impossibly cool like "Bronco" only adds to the mystique, the allure if you will. Please note, Ford also sells something they call "Bronco Sport" and it's an entirely different vehicle. Frankly, it's an underwhelming looking affair.  

You can't see in pictures just how different this thing is from my new main squeeze; but it's totally different. The Bronco Sport (above) looks like a first-generation Ford Escape. In and of itself not a bad thing but why'd they go and call this "Bronco Sport"? Holy marketing confusion, Ford Motor Company. Then again, these are same people who slap "Mustang" on an all-electric cross-over and recycle "Maverick" onto a compact pickup truck. The latter marketing faux pas far less egregious than the former. Speaking of the new Maverick, the Bronco Sport shares it's underpinnings with the new Maverick which while looking like a compact pickup, it's more like a cross-over with a pickup truck-ish body seeing it shares its guts with the Ford Escape. 

Ford introduced the original Bronco in 1966 as a direct competitor to the Jeep CJ. At first offered in roadster, "half-cab" and wagon, by '68 the "roadster" (above) was gone and after 1972 all Ford Broncos were three-door wagons. Ford sold between 12,000 and 14,000 a year, one year they sold 26,000, so they were a relatively niche vehicle. I never saw one in the wild when I was growing up on Long Island in the '70's. Part of the problem was they were so small, too small for families. That didn't matter since Ford sold lots of County Squires. Offering little to no creature comforts, folks bought them for their rugged, compact utility, they were all four-wheel-drive, or they quickly came to realize they had misspent their money on a fashion statement. 

Meanwhile, as Ford was attempting to out-do Jeep, debate all you want if they succeeded or not, in 1969 General Motors rolled out their full-sized, short-wheelbase pickup truck-based Chevrolet K5 "Blazer". Too bad these rode-like trucks with square wheels - these are painfully cool and again, that's coming from a dyed-in-the-wool car guy. GMC got the same vehicle for 1970 but they called it, "Jimmy". The rest, as we say, was history. 

The Blazer\Jimmy was an immediate smash hit that in typical GM form didn't invent a market segment, just redefined and transformed it. Ford didn't come with any answer to the Blazer\Jimmy until 1978. In an age of "downsizing", Ford upsized the Bronco when they took a page out of GM's playbook shortening a Ford F100's wheelbase, dropping a back seat in the bed and bolting down a removal plastic top. No surprise, it sold very well. Cool as these are, there also sort of anonymous looking. Well, that was until the "O.J. 500". 

Five generations of the F100\F150 based Bronco later, Ford replaced it in 1997 with the four-door only, Expedition. A bastion of civility compared to the hoary Bronco; Ford continues to produce the Expedition to this day albeit one that's gone through a gaggle of refinement and four generations over the last quarter century.  

But wait, there's a chapter to this horse story that Ford probably wants to forget about. In 1984, in conjunction with the also new for 1983 Ford Ranger pickup, they foaled, (sorry) the diminutive "Bronco II". Although dimensionally quite similar to the original Bronco, if you ask me, it lacked all of its butch charm. Built through 1990, the "II" was most famous or infamous for stability problems. A top-heavy, narrow design, the "II" had a propensity to flip over. Especially in what's referred to as "J-turns"; the Ford Motor Company, naturally, blamed driver error for the roll-overs. So many "II's" flipped over injuring and killing drivers and passengers that the GEICO insurance company stopped writing policies for them. 

However, to those of us of a certain vintage, "Ford Bronco" will always mean, "O.J." although, in fairness, that infamous designation probably belongs just to the white ones. Ford said that the "O.J. 500" had no bearing on their decision to drop the Bronco name in 1997 as sales of these brutes were dropping anyway. Here's the actual Bronco involved in the infamous low-speed chase on display at the "Alcatraz East Prison Museum" in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If you're wondering, the Ford V8 next to the Bronco was used in the filming of the 1967 film, "Bonnie and Clyde" and was shot up by local police prior to the filming of the scene. The "real" Bonnie and Clyde death car is on display in a casino in Nevada. 

Based on how many 1966-1977 Broncos were made, there were only around 225,000, and so much time has passed since the whole "O.J. 500", much like Ford's new compact "Maverick", it probably doesn't matter what Ford calls this thing or what inspired its design. It's transcendental much in the way the "new" Mini Cooper was and still is. No one cares that it apes the lines of an older vehicle. All that said, I want one. A two-door, please. The four-doors look like shoeboxes on wheels. 

Incidentally, a Bronco is a wild horse and not a particular breed or type of horse.