Everything We Reported Wednesday About the Ford Bronco is Probably Wrong

Bronco.

While the name isn’t as intertwined in Ford history as much as Mustang or F-Series, the Bronco nameplate is something Ford can’t affix to just anything.

And according to rumors we’re hearing, we don’t need to worry about Ford refreshing an Everest for North American consumption and relying on a nostalgic nameplate to carry it off the lot.

Unfortunately, we need to walk a fine line here, as details we received have been shared completely off the record.

However, TTAC can reveal many of the details we are hearing about Bronco fly in the face of our report from yesterday, which detailed a supposed Ford designer dishing details on Ranger and Bronco on Reddit.

The details point to Ford’s Bronco rebirth being more of a Wrangler competitor than a 4Runner clone, bringing the fight to Jeep in a segment it has owned for decades. They also point to Bronco offering some features Wrangler lacks, though those details were shared off the record and can’t be reported.

Ford broke its silence during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, stating Ranger and Bronco will come back to North America in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Both vehicles will be manufactured at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan.

Ranger, which will return as a midsize pickup, will go head-to-head with the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Honda Ridgeline, and Nissan Frontier. Those trucks accounted for 448,398 sales in the United States in 2016 — a jump of 25.5 percent over 2015 — and represent 2.7 percent of overall U.S. sales.

Bronco may only have one true competitor in the Wrangler, but Toyota’s 4Runner will likely give brand agnostic buyers pause if they begin searching for their next off-road capable machine in 2020. Jeep sold 191,774 Wranglers in the U.S. last year, a decline from 202,702 units the year before. The 4Runner sold just over half as often as the Wrangler, with Toyota pushing out 111,970 units in 2016 in the U.S.