Ford design video teases Bronco pickup
Ford teased a conceptual design sketch of a new Bronco pickup Wednesday in a video detailing some of the processes that brought the exterior and interior of the revived 4x4 nameplate to life. The pickup design, spotted by Bronco6g.com, shows up briefly in a storyboard utilized by designers who were trying to brainstorm ideas for making the Bronco more useful in everyday tasks.
The sketches appear (conveniently) at the 2:00 mark in the above video, showing a couple of angles of a concept four-door Bronco with a pickup bed and some other accessories, including a tailgate extension. The original Ford Bronco was offered in a pickup variant, so it's no surprise that the notion has been floating around Ford's design studios. It's especially significant considering that the Bronco's only real rival, the Jeep Wrangler, finally spawned a pickup variant in the Gladiator. A corresponding Bronco (or derivative model) seems like a no-brainer in that context.
On the other side of that coin, Ford offers far more pickups than FCA. The Gladiator's only internal competitor with a bed is the Ram, which is in an entirely different size class. Ford offers the Ranger, which shares the Bronco's proportions because the two are mechanical siblings, and is also expected to sell the Maverick — a unibody, front-(and likely all-)wheel-drive model to slot beneath the midsize Ranger — here in the States.
Ford has made quite a bit of noise about the Bronco's modular body, which allows for quite a bit of customization, whether from the factory or aftermarket. It's possible that a light-duty accessory bed could be offered without Ford having to go to the trouble of fiddling with the Bronco's wheelbase. In fact, the wheel arch in these sketches appears to be in the same spot it is on the production 4-door model. Ford even highlighted that potential versatility in this very video.
How (or even whether) they decide to realize this concept remains to be seen, but we can't help but notice that Ford likes to hide future concepts in plain sight like this. It did the same with the launch of the final generation of the Ford Fusion, where the eventual Sport model was teased with an ST badge. We're not saying you should get excited, merely that you shouldn't rule it out.
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