In 2020, amid a global pandemic, Ford finally launched a highly anticipated
product that could restore a beloved brand name, take on the off road SUV
market, and rake in the profits the company badly needs.
The product is the Ford Bronco.
The Bronco is a name that is familiar to generations of car buyers, first
introduced in the mid 1960s, it had a tough, rugged image and symbolized
an adventurous lifestyle many Americans aspired to.
It lasted for about three decades during which it endured a fuel crisis
and a changing U.S.
car market that saw the rapid influx of highly successful imports that
challenge American car companies.
After it was discontinued, it remained a favorite vehicle for collectors
and vintage car fans.
And now it is back.
And Ford is capitalizing on both nostalgia and the heightened interest in
SUVs and trucks.
Ford is promoting the Bronco as an off-road ready sport utility and has
debuted a new "Built Wild" brand campaign around it.
Ford is already the strongest brand in full sized trucks and has wowed the
market with the Raptor, an innovative off-road version of its best selling
F-150 half ton pickup.
But with the Bronco, Ford is going head to head with another best selling
brand, the Jeep Wrangler, which is extremely well established in the
off-road SUV segment.
Ford is also releasing the Bronco while the United States struggles
through the coronavirus pandemic and its resulting economic fallout.
The poor timing is no fault of Ford.
But with stiff competition and economic strain, the question is, can the
second largest U.S.
automaker sell a vehicle it has been hyping for years?
This Bronco brand represents fun, it represents off-road, it represents
kind of some classic American nameplate that goes way back.
Those people who remember that history and know that history, they're
going to love seeing the name plate come back.
Ford traces the history of the Bronco back to World War Two when the
automaker competed for government contracts to make military vehicles,
Ford sold 275,000 GPW jeeps during the war.
But the Bronco itself didn't come out for another 20 years, in the 1960s,
during a transformative time for Ford.
As an aside, there is an early sketch of the Bronco that was the handiwork
of McKinley Thompson Jr., the first black designer to be hired by any of
the Detroit automakers.
The Bronco project was led largely by Don Frey, who had just overseen the
launch of the now legendary Ford Mustang, the small two door pony car that
became a massive seller and an iconic American car.
The idea with Bronco was to build a sturdy Jeep like vehicle that would
also be able to handle on the highway something other models at the time
were not as strong at.
International Harvester and Jeep CJ were the only two kind of viable
off-road vehicles in the early 60s.
Ford did a lot of market research.
We talked about thousands of Jeep owners and thousands of Scout owners to
find out what they like and didn't like about the vehicles.
And what we found out is they weren't very good on the highway.
When the Bronco came out, Frey said in a press release that there was a new
pony in the stable, referring to the fact that both Mustang and Bronco
took their names from terms for horses.
But the Bronco was not expected to be the runaway success Mustang was.
In the 1960s, the off-road vehicle segment was a niche market.
It was a vehicle purpose built for recreation.
The early Bronco was only available with two doors, though there was a
wagon version which did have a rear seat.
It had a spartan interior, no air conditioning, and few other creature
comforts. Over time, some of those were added.
The first generation Bronco was actually rather small compared with those
that came later. The vehicle was meant to be updated with a larger
footprint in the mid 1970s, but the oil embargoes and fuel shortages
delayed that plan.
The larger Bronco finally did debut in 1978 and was based on the F-Series,
Ford's long running and top selling line of full size pickup trucks.
The automaker tried to widen the product lineup with a smaller version of
the Bronco called the Bronco II.
The vehicle was considered a flop, but it was the precursor to the
Explorer, which is now one of the best selling SUVs of all time.
In all, the Bronco ran for about 30 years before Ford pulled the plug.
By the late 1990s, market tastes had shifted and those who were buying
Fords wanted the family friendly explorer with its four doors, not the
rough riding Bronco.
However, throughout its three decade life, the Bronco did develop a
following. It was helped by Bronco's reputation as a desert racing truck,
exemplified by its performance in the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races.
Bronco's got a real rich history in off-road racing in particular at Baja.
The vehicle behind me here is the Rod Hall, the winning truck in '69 at
the Baja 1000.
It also garnered some fame through popular culture.
So when John Paul the second made his first visit to the US, he was
shepherded around during his public visits in a modified Popemobile
Bronco. And there's a great photo of John Paul the second at Yankee
Stadium waving to the crowd at the back of his Bronco.
Since its discontinuation, the vehicle has become highly sought after by
collectors. Vintage Broncos fetch high prices, its cult status and racing
history left it poised for a resurrection.
For Ford, bringing Bronco back is about reviving a legendary name in a
moment when so many customers are turning toward sport utilities possibly
for good. The Broncos primary target, the Jeep Wrangler, is regarded by
many in the industry as one of the strongest brands in the entire
automotive world. Apart from a few other models, including perhaps pricey
Land Rovers and the also pricey Toyota Land Cruiser, the Wrangler is
considered the tough off road SUV to have.
It has a worldwide reputation for its ruggedness and quintessential
American identity.
It also has an almost religiously devoted fan base.
Fiat Chrysler Jeeps parent takes its core market seriously.
It also benefits from a long history of continuous production.
The Wrangler name has been around since the mid 1980s, and its heritage is
often traced all the way back to the original Jeep models that were made
as military vehicles during World War Two.
The Wrangler usually doesn't change much from year to year, which could be
said to be part of its appeal.
The company does listen to its customers and has the benefit of decades of
continuous feedback from them on what to improve to make the Wrangler
sturdier and more capable road name notwithstanding.
The Bronco, on the other hand, is an entirely new product.
Industry analysts note it doesn't have that long, unbroken history of
customer input and incremental product improvement.
But Ford's chief operating officer, Jim Farley, said in 2020 that the
Bronco will be a superior product to the Wrangler.
Jeep sold about 228,000 wranglers in 2019 and 240,000 the year before.
That seems like quite a lot, but the question remains as to how many
Wrangler buyers are likely to drop a trusted brand they are devoted to and
take a chance on something new.
The Bronco does have its strengths.
The vehicle is a traditional body on frame SUV and it is built on the same
platform as the Ranger, Ford's midsize pickup.
The Ranger itself is a revival, first released for the 2019 model year.
So that truck has not been around that long either.
But Ford's reputation in pickup trucks is strong.
So the Bronco may benefit from that association and from the company's
expertise in that corner of the market.
Ford's pickups, especially the F-150, are considered the company's cash
cow. The F-Series is not only the best selling line of trucks in America,
it is the best selling line of vehicles overall.
The F-150 accounts for the bulk of that.
The market for off-road vehicles is also bigger than it was when the
original Bronco debuted.
However, Ford is releasing the vehicle at what could prove to be a
difficult time for automotive sales and the economy overall.
Some analysts say the Bronco could end up like so many vehicles that have
made a big splash during their debut, sold strongly for a year or even a
few years, and then watched their sales fall as the shine wore off.
Automotive economist John Gabrielson has charted the rise and fall in
volumes of several vehicles and different segments that generated a lot of
excitement when they were introduced.
These include the short lived retro experiments such as the Chevrolet HHR
and SSR, and 11th generation Ford Thunderbird, environmentally conscious
vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt hybrid and Bolt electric,
and SUVs such as the once popular but polarizing Hummer vehicles, which
General Motors now plans to reintroduce as an electric.
Sales of these vehicles seemed to peak very soon after they were introduced
the first year or so before they declined, sometimes rapidly.
The Bronco has also drawn comparisons with the Toyota FJ Cruiser, a
purpose built SUV Toyota introduced in 2003, then pulled from the market
after the 2014 model year.
The vehicle was a hit with hard core off-road fans and has been a popular
choice as a vintage vehicle after its discontinuation in the U.S.,
There's a real dedicated following behind the Ford Bronco nameplate.
And so bringing it back makes sense, especially in this very kind of SUV
happy, SUV hot marketplace that we've got right now.
Ford seems to be taking steps to prevent the Bronco from becoming a product
whose flame burns brightly but briefly.
Jeep declined to comment on this story.
First, Ford is not just releasing a single Bronco, the Bronco is actually a
brand with the larger Ford brand, similar to what Mustang has become.
The automaker is offering a choice of three vehicles in the hope of
capturing a wider swath of customers.
Executives have said that more Bronco vehicles could be on the way.
There are two door and four door versions based on the Ranger platform and
a smaller, lower priced version called the Bronco Sport.
There are about six trim levels for the Bronco alone, plus a special first
edition version in designing the Bronco.
Ford has also taken customer input seriously and says it has tried to
answer needs it thinks are underserved.
We spent a lot of time digging through the archives to make sure we really
understood the essence of the Bronco brand.
We created expert panels and talked to enthusiasts to make sure we fully
understood what Bronco was all about.
And for for us, Bronco had to be really true to what a Bronco always was.
For example, many Wrangler drivers like to pull the doors and the roofs off
their vehicles. But Ford said its design makes doing this easier.
And on the four door version of the Bronco, all four doors can be stowed in
the trunk, a feature not found on the Wrangler.
Ford's actually done some really thoughtful design touches, like being able
to stash the doors in the back instead of having to leave them behind,
having the mirrors mounted on the fenders instead of on the doors.
If you've ever taken the doors off the Wrangler, you quickly realized I
don't have any side-view mirrors anymore.
There are slide out tables on the rear of the Bronco for camping or
tailgating, along with a bottle opener and floodlights on its tailgate.
Ford also offers an optional bundle of off-road upgrades called the
Sasquatch Package, which comes standard on the Broncos highest trim.
Opting for the Sasquatch Package makes the vehicle only available with
automatic transmission.
Manual options are otherwise available, but Ford's North America product
communications manager Mike Levine said on Twitter the company is open to
changing that if customers want the manual with the Sasquatch Package as
well. Ford is also trying to build out a community of Bronco drivers that
can help sustain interest in the vehicle over time.
The automaker is starting a program called Off-Roadeo, where new owners are
offered a free day and a half clinic in off-road driving and Bronco
ownership on one of four courses around the U.S.
There is also an online forum called Bronco Nation for owners and
enthusiasts. So this Bronco Nation website is is up and running and we
expect that to be just a great source for building that community.
We have the opportunity to come in fresh to kind of help organize that
community into a singular community, where if you want to know the latest
Bronco news or just learning about the outdoors signing up for the
Off-Roadeo, they'll go to TheBroncoNation.com.
The Broncos starts at $29,995 including destination charges, which is just
$205 more than a base Jeep Wrangler.
Prices for the highest end models, top $60,000.
If it takes off, the Bronco could be a great moneymaker for Ford.
Selling 125,000 Broncos, just more than half the volume of the Jeep
Wrangler in 2018, would contribute nearly $1 billion to Ford's North
American pretax earnings, according to Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy.
He expects Bronco to pull in profits of about $7,500 per unit.
That would make Bronco one of Ford's most profitable models.
Ford's North America president Kumar Galhotra projected the company could
sell hundreds of thousands of Broncos a year.
This all comes at a time when the second largest U.S.
automaker is in the middle of a multi-year turnaround.
CEO Jim Hackett who took the reins of the company in May 2017, had at
times taken criticism for not moving quickly or decisively enough to cut
the company's costs and jettison struggling businesses.
In August, Hackett said he would retire from Ford effective October 1st.
Ford said COO Jim Farley would take Hackett's place.
Ford continues to be challenged in China and has had difficulty with its
business in Europe. The Blue Oval unveiled an $11 billion restructuring
plan in 2018, which at the time Ford said would take years.
But before coronavirus set in, there were some positive signs at the
company. Its North American business continued to be strong, in large part
due to the success of its full size trucks.
Shares were up more than 21% for the 2019 calendar year.
Now, like all automakers, Ford is struggling with the effects of the
coronavirus pandemic.
As of July 17th, 2020 shares had fallen roughly 27% since the beginning of
the year, Ford said in late June, its sales for the second quarter of 2020
were down 33%, though this was in line with industry expectations.
The pandemic also forced the automaker to stop production for several
weeks during the quarter.
But in late July, Ford released results for the second quarter of 2020 that
surpassed even its own expectations.
Part of that came from the fact that sales turned around amid the pandemic
better than expected. And the company said it already has more than
150,000 reservations for the broncho.
The coronavirus pandemic also raises questions about how well Ford will be
able to manage the key product rollouts it had scheduled for the year.
The company already had some trouble with the launch of its new explorer
in 2019.
Ford had to delay the release of the Broncho and its latest version of its
best selling F-150 due to the circumstances, and it is supposed to roll
out its new Mustang Mach-E fully electric vehicle later in the year.
The Bronco unveiling already faced some other challenges.
Its first adjusted unveiling date, July 9th, happened to fall on the
birthday of O.J.
Simpson, the former football star and actor who had been accused of
killing his ex-wife in the 1990s.
At the time he was accused, Simpson was engaged in a televised chase with
police in 1994 in a white Ford Bronco.
The company said the choosing of the date was just a coincidence, but
changed it again anyway.
Despite these obstacles, there has been little question among auto
industry insiders that the Bronco was always a highly anticipated product.
It is also a vehicle that plays to Ford's strengths, and it is a fresh
entry in the sport utility segment customers are clamoring for.
Finally, Ford says it has been careful to build a Bronco worthy of the
name a true off-roader.
Kind of started with the Built Ford Tough Testing and then we've added to
that and taken Broncos out to the toughest terrains that we could find.
Johnson Valley and all the different trails that we could find out there
to really test it out.
We have the capability on the vehicle to ensure that it's got the right to
build a so all Broncos are four by four.
And then there's an element of the authentic design.
Success or failure, it is a sign that Ford is focusing its attention on a
market it knows well and can succeed in capable trucks and SUVs built
mostly for Americans.