2025 Ford Bronco

There are lots of SUVs on the market – but very few 4x4s. What’s the difference? Well, it’s the difference between a professional fighter and a guy who hits the bag at the gym on weekends. Both throw punches. One of them hits harder.

Like professional fighters, there are only a few 4x4s in the ring.

One of them is the Ford Bronco.

What It Is

The Bronco is a 4×4 rather than an SUV – which means it is made specifically to be capable of taking on un-paved roads, deep water and rugged terrain generally. Unlike most SUVs, which offer 4WD, the Bronco comes standard with it and it’s different from the systems found in many SUVs because it has 2WD High (rear-wheel-drive) and 4WD High selectable ranges, as well as automatic 4WD and 4WD Low. The majority of SUVs have automatic 4WD and some do not come with Low range gearing.

The Bronco also offers something else no other SUV on the market in this country is even available with. A manual transmission.

Ford also offers the Bronco in two-and-four-door bodystyles and you can get a soft-top or a removeable hard-top. There are three engines to pick from, too – ranging from the standard turbocharged 2.3 liter four cylinder to the optional twin-turbo 2.7 liter V6 and the top-of-the-line 3.0 liter turbocharged V6.

Prices start at $38,995 for the Base two-door with the 2.3 liter engine and your pick of either the seven speed manual or the available 10 speed automatic.

The Big Bend ($40,420) is next. It adds  a full-size spare mounted on the rear (swing out) door and leather trim inside.

The Outer Banks ($47,940) comes standard with the automatic plus running boards and 18 inch wheels with all-terrain tires.This trim is eligible for the optional 2.7 liter twin-turbo V6, which is available as a stand-alone option ($2,145). This engines comes only with the automatic.

The Badlands ($49,585) swaps out the 18 inch wheels and all-terrain tires for a set of 17 inch wheels and 33 inch knobbies, plus a heavier-duty suspension with Bilstein shocks, rock rails and skid plates, plus wiring for auxiliary switches to control winches and such.

The Heritage ($51,475) is essentially a cosmetic package that hearkens back to the original Bronco of the ’60s with white hardtop, plaid cloth interior and graphics unique to this trim.

The Stroppe Edition ($75,635) gets everything you’d get with the Badlands plus the 2.7 V6 as standard equipment and the Sasquatch package that’s optional with the Badlands. The Sasquatch package bundles 35 inch knobbies, a lifted suspension, locking front and rear axles and high-mount fender flares.

The Raptor iteration is the most expensive ($79,995) off-road-capable and most powerful Bronco. It is the only Bronco that comes with the 3.0 liter V6 and you also get 37 inch beadlock knobbies on 17 wheels, Fox off-road shocks. a heavier-duty rear axle and an electric decoupling front sway bar (to allow greater wheel articulation) plus all the stuff that comes with the Sasquatch package.

The Bronco’s only real rival is the Jeep Wrangler, which is also available in two and four-door bodystyles and is also a 4×4 rather than an SUV.

What’s New For 2025.

The Stroppe Edition is new; the previously available Everglades and Wildtrak trims have been retired. There’s a new March Gray matte paint option and a factory wrap option, along with some minor equipment changes.

What’s Good

Very much like the classic Broncos of the ’60s in that this rig is designed to go anywhere you dare.

Though it doesn’t come with a V8 like the classic Broncos of the past, its standard four makes more power than any of the classic Bronco’s V8s.

Available with a manual transmission.

What’s Not So Good

Only the standard engine is available with the manual; you also have to move up to the more expensive trims to be able to get the optional 2.7 V6.

Though extremely capable, the Bronco’s 4WD relies on electronics to engage/disengage the ranges.

Jeep Wrangler’s MSRP is thousands less and you get a standard V6, as well as a standard manual transmission.

Under The Hood

The Bronco’s standard engine is a turbocharged 2.3 liter four cylinder that touts 300 horsepower and 325 ft.-lbs. of torque. This is a lot more of both than a 1970 Bronco’s 289 V8 conjured – which was all of 205 horsepower. Ford has added a PFI circuit to the DI (Direct Injection) to prevet carbon fouling (an issue with DI-only engines).

The classic Bronco also came standard with a manual transmission – but it was just a three speed, with no overdrive gearing. The Bronco’s standard manual has seven, including overdrive – allowing for comfortable highway speed driving. Without overdrive, a classic Bronco was very uncomfortable on the highway – unless you kept your speed down to around 60 MPH. Even then, you were not far from a classic Bronco’s top speed.

You can also opt for a 10 speed automatic; this box can be dialed in (literally) via a rotary knob controller on the center console that lets you adjust shift timing and firmness, depending on the conditions.

The Bronco’s main rival – the Jeep Wrangler – comes standard with a larger, 3.6 liter V6 but it only makes 285 horsepower and Jeep says the Wrangler so equipped is only able to pull 2,000 lbs. The Bronco with the 2.3 four is rated to pull as much as 3,500 lbs. The Jeep also comes standard with a manual transmission – but it’s a six speed.

You can opt for a V6 in all but the Base Bronco trims; it’s a small one – just 2.7 liters – but it touts 330 horsepower and 415 ft.-lbs of torque. The power come not so much from size or cylinders but from boost. This engine has two turbos. It massively outguns the Jeep’s V6, which is the only engine you can get in the Wrangler unless you can afford spend $100k for the Rubicon 392 version or want a turbo-hybrid four drivetrain called 4Xe; the latter only offers 270 hp.

If the 2.7 V6 isn’t strong enough for you, the Raptor’s 3.0 liter turbocharged V6 ought to be. It makes 418 horsepower and 440 ft.-lbs. of torque and it’s a steal relative to the $100k Rubicon 392, which lists for nearly $25k more.

Equipped with this engine, the Bronco is rated to pull up to 4,500 lbs.

All Broncos come standard with a 4WD system that can be set for 2WD High, 4WD High, 4WD auto and 4WD Low range via push-buttons located inside the drive-mode ring on the center console. Front, center and rear locking diffs are available or standard – depending on the trim/packages you buy.

On The Road

Driving the new Bronco is like being young again – if you’re not young anymore. It is a pleasant reminder of how much better things were – or felt like they were – when some of us were young.

They were certainly more interesting – in the sense that there was much more variety back when the original Bronco was new. There were rear-engined/air-cooled VWs, rotary-powered Subarus, great land yachts with huge V8 and strange (but interesting to see) things like the AMC Pacer – and it was just one of many that weren’t all the same, as it looks and seems to be today.

The Bronco is interesting before you even drive it – because it is so interesting to look at, especially the variants with three-tone paint jobs. But the really interesting thing is much deeper than that – and you have to go for a drive to understand that. Open the door – which feels heavy and solid rather than thin and flimsy – and sit down and look out through the nearly vertical front glass over the scalloped hood with the grab handle things on either side. If you close your eyes – and don’t look at the LCD dash display – it’s not at all difficult to imagine that you’re getting ready to drive a ’70 Bronco rather than a brand-new one.

Then you get going and realize that while the visuals are an excellent conjuring of the early ’70s, the drive is updated in all the right ways. There is power – and acceleration – for openers. The old Bronco was under-engined, even when it was equipped with its available V8. It was great for slow-trekking fire roads, but on the road it was very clear you were driving a 4×4. The thing was geared for slow-motion tenacity, not high speed cruising much less on-road cornering.

This Bronco is adept at all three.

While the standard turbo four is more than powerful enough, the optional V6 is worth the extra charge because of the sounds it makes. It’s not the sound of a V8 – but Ford didn’t have to fake that kind of sound (as some car companies do) because this little V6 makes a great – if different – sound. It’s wonderfully belligerent when you ask it to be. On the other hand, there is something equally – if differently – pleasant about being able to shift for yourself (with the standard 2.3 liter engine). It’s part of what makes the new Bronco compelling. It is as far from being one-size-fits-all as almost everything else new is.

Yet – to channel (and parody) Ricardo Montalban – it is off pavement where the Bronco best answers my demands. This thing has the clearance, the angles of approach and departure and all the other equipment needed to take you wherever a dirt bike can go, assuming there’s room between the trees to squeeze by. It’s as real-deal as it gets and it’s all factory-equipped. No need to modify the Bronco.

Other than the tire/wind noise you will hear (especially if you get the knobbies) it is like driving an SUV.

Just one that’s not.

At The Curb

The Bronco’s existence proves it is possible to design a new vehicle that is both visually (and otherwise) interesting as well as compliant. Though the new Bronco looks like it time-travelled from 1970, it meets all 2025 federal “safety” standards, outside and in. Yet it doesn’t look like a compliance mobile and that is hugely compelling if you’re weary of the way compliance pressures have made almost everything new look as if they were all stamped out of the same mold, then given different badges as they left the factory.

Like its main rival, the Bronco is available with two or four doors – and with a removable hard-top or a soft-top, as you prefer.

The two-door version is 173.7 inches long; the four-door version is 189.4 inches long. The chief difference – other than length and whether there are two or four doors – is how much room there is in back and for cargo. The two-door has 35.7 inches of backseat legroom and 20.6 cubic feet of cargo with the back seats up. Fold them down and the available space increases to 52 cubic feet. The four door has a bit more legroom – 36.3 inches – and a lot more room for cargo: 38.3 inches with the back seats in place and 77.6 cubic feet with them out of the way.

The two-door Wrangler is significantly shorter than the two-door Wrangler; it is 166.8 inches long and has only 12.9 cubic feet of cargo capacity with its rear seats up and maxes out at 31.7 cubic feet. The four-door Wrangler is about the same overall size as the four door Bronco and comparably spacious for passengers and cargo. But both versions of the Jeep lack an engine upgrade that isn’t a six figure upgrade. The 4Xe plug-in hybrid is only an upgrade if you value this variant’s electric-only (for about 22 miles, fully charged) capability.

The Bronco’s argo area is accessible via a swing-out rear door or via a lift-up rear glass section; each can be opened separately, as you prefer. A nice touch that people who like vehicles like this will love are the not-hidden pinch welds that can be seen when you open the doors or the rear liftgate. The spot welds on the integrated roll bar are ruggedly visible, too.

The Rest

It speaks to the Bronco’s serious retro demeanor that even the tested Stroppe Edition comes standard with manual-adjust seats. There’s a grab handle you pull to move them forward and back. It’s simple – and that’s good – because simple is less likely to break and even if it does, mechanical is simpler to deal with in a pinch than electrical.

It’s also faster. Moving the seats forward and back manually takes less time than waiting for electric motors to move them.

Ford might have pursued the same simple-is-better approach insofar as regards the 4×4 controls. A retro shift lever for engaging 4WD High (and 4WD Low) would have gone nicely with the thematic revisiting and also been more rugged and simpler and easier to deal with off-road if that ever becomes necessary than the electronic switches (and engagement) you get.

Same, arguably, goes for the gauge cluster. It’s LCD and so that is just like everything else. You do get more info – such as the grade (ascending/descending) of the road or trail you’re on. But some analog gauges would have been as emotionally interesting as the rest of the Bronco.

The Bottom Line   

SUVs – and crossovers are as common as minivans were not too long ago, which is why this 4×4 stands out like SUVs used to, before they became (effectively) the modern minivan of choice for most.

Here’s a very different choice, for once.

. . .

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