The first on- and off-road testing of the 2021 Ford Bronco is out this week. More interesting details are trickling along, too, now that people are finally getting their hands on the long-hyped comeback truck. One new novelty is in how easy the front fenders will be to remove and replace.
If you take the new Ford Bronco out where the marketing teams think you will, you’re going to likely run into trail brush and inevitably make an impact on your paint job. The front fenders are extremely prone to damage, and the fender is often the first thing to touch the side of trail if your tires slide.
Conveniently, Ford has made it really easy to remove the fenders, and it uses the same toolkit supplied to easily remove the doors. Hagerty has a quick clip in its review video of the Bronco with friend of Jalopnik Zack Klapman showing you what the truck looks like with the fender removed:
We’ve seen concepts before for plenty of vehicles with easy-to-replace panels, those just almost-never went into production. There was the ugly Mazda MX-04, the modular ItalDesign range of 1982, the symmetrical AMC Cavalier concept, and the Nissan Pulsar that actually went into production with various body panels that could be attached or removed for different configurations. A few other cars had easily-detachable fenders like this, the Citroën DS as an example, if anything about that the DS could be described as easy.
This is maybe the first time I’ve seen it applied in such a practical application, and it makes sense to justify whatever Ford had to do here. It simplifies repairs, because of the specific off-roading nature of the Bronco and how prone it could be to damage over time.
Plus, it just looks cool to see the entire side of the truck, with the washer fluid hanging just over the mud guard. I wonder if this means Bronco owners are going to start doing “fender swaps” at meetups? Maybe they’ll start selling their beat up fenders on eBay to those craving easy clout.