With all the buzz surrounding the new Ford Bronco, it’s no surprise that the company was seriously considering a pickup truck version to combat the Jeep Gladiator. The company even teased a truck in a design video, and inside sources said that the idea was getting traction. But according to sources that spoke with Automotive News, the Bronco with a bed is officially dead.
Certainly Ford boosters will be disappointed to hear this, but there are a lot of reasons this makes sense. For one thing, Ford already has a truck for the midsize market: the Ranger. The Ranger will even utilize the same platform as the Bronco SUV. So there’s a solid chance that instead of stealing sales from the Gladiator, the Bronco truck might just eat into Ranger sales while also costing additional development money.
On top of that, a Bronco truck wouldn’t really be able to steal that many sales away from Gladiator. Gladiator’s sales of around 77,000 in 2020 are reasonable in the midsize market, and pretty solid for a niche vehicle. But the sales are small compared with that of Wrangler, which were well above 200,000 in 2020. Targeting Wrangler buyers makes fiscal sense, but not so much Gladiator buyers.
Finally, the regular Bronco is already suffering severe production issues and delivery delays. The last thing the company needs to be worrying about is trying to squeeze another model onto the assembly line.
Would a Ford Bronco truck be cool? Absolutely. Is it a smart decision right now? Absolutely not.
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