You may remember way back to yesterday, the day we finally maybe detected bacteria farts in the atmosphere of Venus, that a Ford engineer confirmed that no, the new Ford Bronco will not be getting an optional V8. While this is very important news to have, I nevertheless felt it didn’t go far enough. So, I pushed further, and can now with great certainty say that the new Ford Bronco will also not be getting a V4 engine, either.
Additionally, further investigation suggests that in addition to not getting a V4, Ford’s plans for the re-born Bronco also include extensive plans to not offer a wide variety of engine options painstakingly evaluated by Ford’s crack engineering team.
Leaked documents also suggest that Ford has put considerable effort and R&D into not offering a horizontally-opposed engine with six cylinders—a flat-four was also considered to be not offered for the Bronco, but early tests found it lacked the torque numbers they wanted, so it was dropped from the list of engines to not be considered and instead will not be offered as an unavailable option.
Ford has also not reached out to Mazda for a deal to not provide an all-new rotary engine option for the new Bronco, an engine that will not be based on the development Mazda has been putting into a rotary range extender engine for the upcoming MX-30. Sources close to the nonexistent deal have reported that early computer-based models that were not programmed provided very interesting results if they existed, which they don’t.
Perhaps most surprising is Ford’s lack of research into a series of three-cylinder two-stroke engines that are based on old DKW designs, which would be a very unexpected and radical inclusion as an engine option for the Bronco, which, Ford engineers stressed, it is not, in any way.
Of all the engines that won’t be available for the Bronco (well, aside from the V8), the V4 has, arguably, the most history at Ford. Ford engineers have confirmed that the V4 engine developed originally for the Cardinal small-car project and then used for Ford of Germany’s Taunus (and, interestingly for the original Mustang prototype) would form the basis for the modern V4 engine that will not be designed and developed for use as a non-option for the Bronco, and will be unavailable by 2021 at the latest.
It’s interesting that Ford has considered this engine with such an interesting history at the company as an option to not include on future Broncos.
I’m really excited to not see these amazing engine options in the online configurator, and even more excited to not get a chance to drive one of these Broncos that definitely won’t exist!
Who’s not with me?