Ford Bronco ute axed: Is the Ranger to blame?

Ford has reportedly scrapped plans for a utility version of the born-again Ford Bronco.

According to Automotive News, Ford decided to quash the new model because of its potential to cannibalise sales from the Aussie-developed Ford Ranger and its top-selling model, the full-size Ford F-150 pick-up.

AN doesn’t quote any Ford executives, instead citing “insider sources” for the intel.

The Ford Bronco and any related spin-offs remain off the table for Australians, so we would likely never have seen the long-rumoured but never-confirmed ute version in local showrooms anyway.

“We have no plans to share in regards to bringing the Bronco to Australia,” a Ford Australia spokesman reiterated to carsales today.

Based on the Australian designed and engineered T6 Ranger platform, the Jeep Wrangler-rivalling Ford Bronco has been a smash-hit in its native US market.

Despite this, it has been ruled out time and again for the Aussie market because it is not built in right-hand drive, and due to fears it would steal sales from the Ranger, Ford Australia’s top-selling model – and presumably the Everest, which is based on the same ladder frame.

Rumours of the Bronco ute initially surfaced midway through 2020, with new sketches revealed in January only fanning the flame.

Previously expected on sale in the US from mid-2025 as a 2025 model, the Bronco pick-up would have been exclusively a four-door dual-cab model with the same specs and equipment levels as the SUV, including Badlands, Big Bend, Black Diamond, Outer Banks, Wildtrak and Sasquatch variants.

US outlets had speculated the Bronco ute would be priced in line with the Bronco SUV, starting at $US30,000 and extending beyond $US60K for fully-loaded versions.

Alas, Ford of America, which doesn’t sell the Everest, never confirmed development or production of the Jeep Gladiator rival, which would have in effect been a fancy Ranger – and now we understand why. 

Sales of mid-size pick-ups represent just 4.2 per cent of US auto market, where full-size pick-ups are more than three times more popular, making the F-Series Ford’s best-selling and most profitable model line.

But medium utes still accounted for almost 350,000 sales and maintained their share of the recovering North American market in the first half of 2021 with 29 per cent growth.

The Toyota Tacoma – the sister model to Australia’s top-selling HiLux – remained on top with a 40 per cent share of the segment.

The US-built Ford Ranger remained fairly static in second with a 27 per cent sales increase in the first half of 2021, when it snared a 17 per cent segment share and found 58,000 homes – more than the total number of Rangers sold in Australia in a full year.

It was followed by the Jeep Gladiator, which overtook the Chevrolet Colorado for third, with the upgraded Nissan Frontier (Navara) fifth.

But the fastest growing model in the segment, the Honda Ridgeline, is also the only mid-size ute based on a unibody platform, and it will soon be joined by not only the Hyundai Santa Cruz but the all-new Ford Maverick.

Like the Bronco Sport compact SUV on which it’s based, the Ford Maverick twin-cab won’t be sold here either, but the Ranger and Maverick could well give Ford leadership in the mid-size pick-up segment Stateside.

Either way, with more than 200,000 Bronco orders taking the waiting list well into 2022, it’s easy to see by a Bronco ute is superfluous to Ford’s needs – and why RHD versions of the Bronco and Maverick remain unlikely to eventuate for Australia.