Ford Bronco ute in the works

Ford has been tipped to add a ute to its Bronco family in North America, with a report claiming the Gladiator-fighting model is being lined up for the end of the decade.

Automotive News reports that Ford intends to grow several of its best-known nameplates into full vehicle families, citing people with knowledge of the car-maker's future product plans. If it goes ahead, Bronco would become the third Ford nameplate after Mustang and F-Series to be stretched well beyond its original body style.

The ute was said to be pencilled in for a launch by 2030 and would be built at Michigan Assembly Plant, where the Bronco is already produced. That would push Ranger production out of the Wayne, Michigan facility and down to Tennessee, timed to coincide with a next-generation Ranger arriving around 2029.

Before any of that, an electrified Bronco was said to be due in 2027, arriving as a 2028 model and tied to a visual refresh of the rugged 4x4.

Ford wasn't playing along. Spokesman Mike Levine said the company was "not going to comment on future product speculation, much of which is inaccurate" – while pointing to a product renewal that will refresh 80 per cent of its North American line-up by volume by 2029, taking in the electric Fathom mid-size ute, the next-generation F-150 and the F-Series Super Duty.

A Bronco ute is hardly a new idea. The original was sold as a two-door half-cab from 1966 to 1972, and Ford was reported to have weighed up a modern version soon after the sixth-generation Bronco landed in 2021 before shelving it.

Australians shouldn't get their hopes up. The Bronco expected in local showrooms in 2027 is the Bronco New Energy – a five-seat, monocoque SUV built in China through Ford's joint venture with Jiangling Motors, and unrelated to the ladder-frame, Ranger-based Bronco sold in the United States.

Nor would the Michigan reshuffle touch our Ranger, which is built in Thailand for right-hand-drive markets.

That leaves the Bronco ute as a North American proposition for now, and one Ford hasn't confirmed exists.

*AI generated lead image.

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