8 Fun Bronco Facts Every Ford Enthusiast Should Know

The word bronco conjures up images of rugged resilience, a cowboy picking his way through difficult terrain on a trusty steed. Ford began producing the Bronco smack dab in the middle of a decade renowned for auto innovation. The muscle car revolution was heating up, and Ford had already scored big with another equine nameplate when its factories began work on a new off-road vehicle in 1965. 

The Bronco was as different from the Mustang as a ranch hand is to a varsity athlete. Its removable top, 4x4 capability, and car-like interior finish blurred the lines between a utilitarian truck comfortable on the trail and a family car smooth on the highways. That's what Ford was going for. 

The evolution of the automobile was such that rough-and-tumble pickup trucks were slowly merging with the comfortable family car. Not everyone had the same vision, as evidenced by the emergence of those weird cars with truck beds, but the Bronco was different. Its legacy dominates today's market.

The Ford Bronco is not just a car, it's an American classic. It has garnered a passionate fanbase of drivers and admirers who appreciate its capability as much as its status. In honor of its place in the pantheon of American automobiles, let's examine eight fun Bronco facts every Ford enthusiast should know.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Ford introduced two horse-inspired nameplates within two years. The Ford Mustang arrived for the 1965 model year and was an instant and overwhelming success. By the following year, the Bronco was on the same trajectory.

Don Frey joined Ford in 1950. An Army veteran with a PhD in Metallurgy from the University of Michigan, Frey was confident he had a car that could save the automaker from its biggest flop to date: the Ford Edsel. He pushed his idea for the Ford Mustang so hard that the reluctant Henry Ford II finally gave it his stamp of approval, with the caveat that Frey head up the project. Failure meant firing.

Perhaps the unmitigated success of the Mustang gave Frey the support he needed to bring another new car into Ford's lineup. Unlike the Mustang, which essentially kickstarted the pony car craze, the Bronco would compete with models that already had a long lineage off-road prowess.

Frey had the idea for the Bronco in his back pocket for years before production began. Other manufacturers were building off-road capable vehicles, but Frey was convinced Ford could do it better.

World War II marked the dawn of the off-roader era, with a demand for small, simple, and capable 4x4s that could navigate the challenging terrains of Europe's battlefields.

Willys-Overland Motors secured a government contract for its General-Purpose vehicle, a name that would be bastardized to GP before becoming simply Jeep. However, when demand overtook Willy's production capability, Ford licensed the design, ultimately producing over 280,000 "jeeps" for the war effort. But when Willys turned into Kaiser-Jeep in 1953 and pursued the model, Ford went on to other things. Until the 1960s, when Don Frey had Ford purchase some Jeep CJs and International Harvester Scouts. 

Engineers and designers tested the vehicles rigorously, pulling them apart, and putting them back together to understand their design and functionality. Marketing surveyed owners of the competition to find out what the Jeeps and Scouts did well and, perhaps more importantly, what they did poorly. Frey and his team were determined to learn from the competition and believed that Ford could do it better.

The crux of the Bronco concept lay in a trend that had been gaining power through the 1950s. For a half-century, trucks were for work, and cars were for the family. But Frey and others envisioned a vehicle that could pull double duty. The concept was so strong it would introduce a new term into the automobile lexicon.

That didn't mean "greatest of all time," though some among the passionate Bronco fan base would argue the case. From conception, the minds at Ford wanted an ultra-capable off-road capability out of its yet-unnamed model.

A now-famous internal memo in 1966 illustrates the thinking behind the Bronco. The subject line refers to the project as the "1966 G.O.A.T.," meaning a vehicle that Goes Over All Terrain. Though Ford was a well-established automaker with a line of respected trucks, it had little experience building off-road vehicles.

It would be a challenge to develop a true 4x4 that could rip trails with the best of them. The early Broncos were closer to the offroading end of the vehicle spectrum. The original was rudimentary by today's standards.

Ford built the first-generation Broncos on an all-new, dedicated platform, essentially starting from the ground up. The resulting first generation came with a 92-inch wheelbase, solid axles, coil springs, and a range of engine options that would ultimately include everything from an 89 hp 2.8-liter in-line six-cylinder to a 205 hp 4.9-liter V8.

Calling the Bronco the Goat was never a serious consideration, but over the following decades, it would live up to the promise of the term in that memo. The Bronco's off-road capabilities continued to evolve, with each new generation incorporating new technologies and design improvements, cementing its reputation as a versatile and capable off-road vehicle.

The blue oval certainly intended for the Bronco to make a splash, and it did. Within the first two model years, Ford saw over 180,000 Broncos go out the door. It paled in comparison with the million Mustangs purchased in the same time frame, but it was clear Ford had struck a chord with its new vehicle.

The original Bronco came in three varieties. The Roadster demanded the lowest cost, despite offering optional doors and top. Impractical but distinctive, the early Roadsters have become some of the most sought-after used Broncos in existence. Only 5,000 of the ultra-rare U13 Roadster were built between 1965 and 1968, with an estimated 200 or fewer still in existence today.

The Wagon derivative was similar to the Roadster, except it had the added luxuries of doors and a hardtop. It would be the version of the Bronco that endured the longest. As the market shifted and changed over the years, the emerging Broncos bore the closest resemblance to the Wagon.

Though the Wagon lasted the longest, the third type of Bronco contributed its name to car history. Essentially a short-bed pickup truck, it seemed a tad redundant given Ford's reputation as a truck producer. The half-cab design didn't last, but like the Mustang before, the Sports Utility Bronco coined an entire genre of autos: the sports utility vehicle.

From the 1966 LeMans podium sweep immortalized in 2019's "Ford vs. Ferrari" to fielding some of the winningest F1 teams of all time, Ford used professional racing circuits to develop and advance its vehicles at every possible turn.

The Bronco was no different. Before its public release, Ford handed the keys to one of its new trucks to now-legendary racer Bill Stroppe. Stroppe souped up the Bronc, and it promptly won the 1967 Riverside Four-Wheel Drive Grand Prix. That was just the beginning. Throughout the ensuing years, the Bronco stacked podiums at events like the Mint 400 and Baja 1000.

Perhaps the most famous of the cross-country races of the era was known as "Big Oly." Ostensibly a Bronco, Big Oly was as much aftermarket performance as it was stock Ford. Its chromoly steel tube chassis, fiberglass panels, twin I-beam front suspension, and 5.8-liter V8 Windsor making around 390 hp made it a beastly Baja blaster that would rack up multiple wins in off-road events.

Ford evidently had the Bronco's racing pedigree in mind when it resurrected the nameplate in 2020. In 2023, it introduced the Ford Bronco DR, a $295,000 turnkey Baja-ready racing rig.

The first Bronco hit in 1966 to take a bite out of International Harvester and Jeep, and it succeeded — a little too much. Perennial competitor Chevrolet introduced the K5 Blazer in 1969, and Jeep wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Despite an increasingly competitive marketplace, Ford didn't introduce its bigger and beefier second-generation Bronco until the 1978 model year. What was once a compact SUV had matured into a full-sized affair based on Ford's F-100 pickup. Still offered with only two doors (three counting the tailgate), the second-gen was not nearly as long-lived as its predecessor.

The third-generation Bronco (not to be confused with the 1984 Ranger-based Bronco II) was in production between 1980 and 1986. It had manual or automatic transmissions mated to the buyer's choice of an in-line six or one of three Ford V8s.

Introduced alongside the eighth-generation F-series pickup, the fourth-generation Bronc arrived in 1987 with a smoother body style that departed from the previous boxiness. The once revolutionary SUV looked more like a cross between a Ranger and an F-150 with a cap on the back.

Fading fast, the fifth generation showed up in 1992 for a brief four-year production run. Mechanically similar to the previous iteration, it received minor style updates that couldn't put the sizzle back in the pan. After 1996, the Bronco disappeared seemingly for good until the sixth generation arrived 25 years later.

With its status as a bona fide automotive icon, it should be no surprise that the Bronco has inspired some cool-looking concepts over the years. What's a little more unexpected is that the Bronco was once a concept that made the rare step to becoming a production vehicle.

By 2004, the Bronco had been discontinued for nearly a decade, much to the chagrin of Bronco enthusiasts. Many were surprised when Ford unveiled a concept for a new Bronco at the Detroit Auto Show. It was distinctly futuristic, with unique features that piqued the interest of many. The design paid homage to the boxiness of the original 1966 model, adding a touch of nostalgia to its futuristic appeal.

Built on a Ford Escape platform, the fantasy Bronco included LED headlights, an aluminum body, and a perplexingly underwhelming 2.0-liter turbodiesel making 128 hp. It might not win any tractor pulls, but an all-wheel-drive system and the fact that it could run at all put it a cut above some concepts.

The concept sparked rumors of the Bronco's return. Ultimately, they were proven correct, but it took another 15 years before Ford announced the sixth-generation Bronco's return to the market. The 2021 model year showcased many design cues from the 2004 concept, but Ford improved it in all the right places. With options for a 2.3-liter or 2.7-liter engine making 270 and 310 hp respectively, the Bronco was back!

Ford's history is interwoven with the story of America as an industrialized nation. For decades, the Big 3 automakers were Detroit's economic lifeblood. With a connection to the community that includes generations of families building the same vehicle, tradition is integral to brand loyalty.

The Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan opened in 1957. It eventually expanded from a 33-acre site employing 4,300 people into a 5,000,000-square-foot facility spread over 369 acres.

Initially built for Mercury and Lincoln brand cars, the plant retooled for trucks, churning out the F-100 pickup truck. With truck tooling in place, the plant began producing the first Broncos in 1965, and it served as the womb of the Bronco until the truck disappeared in 1996.

When Ford brought the Bronco back in 2021, it turned to the same plant that had once built its most legendary SUV. Today, the Wayne Michigan Assembly Plant builds the sixth-generation Bronco, just as it had for decades.