What Jalopnik's Off-Road Experts Think About The 2021 Ford Bronco
Andrew Collins is a lifelong 4x4 enthusiast, former off-road guide, raced in the Baja 1000, he's been around. I've been off-roading since I was 15, using the passion to score a job as a Jeep engineer, and then leaving for Jalopnik to up crap-can Jeeps and take them rock-crawling in Moab. Andrew and I are clearly off-road nerds; here's what we think about the 2021 Ford Bronco.
The video above is basically just Andrew and me chatting about the new Bronco, and giving our initial thoughts because we wanted to. In the video, I reference a number of things that I covered in my deep-dive, so give that a read, too.
I talk about why I think it was smart for Ford to go with independent front suspension, I discuss how Ford picked some "low hanging fruit" (i.e. made improvements) that Jeep left dangling, and I tell whether I'd chose the Bronco over the Wrangler. (My answer: It depends on how good the manual transmission is). Above all, I make it clear that I dig the Bronco, even if I do prefer a solid axle for off-roading.
Here's Andrew to tell you about his general sentiments on the Bronco:
If I sound a little low-energy in this conversation clip, it's only because we were out of coffee yesterday morning. My stoke is on strong for this truck. There was a time when I was so cynically sure that a U.S. market "Bronco" was just going to be a marketing exercise, a rebadged Ford Everest from Australia, or something.
I am very happy to say I was wrong. Enough people at Ford clearly saw the value in creating a true novelty car, something that's really going to put a lot of smiles on faces on and off-road. It's one of the very few modern cars I genuinely want to own, and I haven't even driven it yet.
Anyway, I could keep typing, but, we made a whole video so we wouldn't have to. Go watch it!