Seems like it’s been just a couple of eyeblinks since Ford revived the fabled Bronco, but it didn’t take the Dearborn crowd a great deal of time to begin specializing it. Normally, this kind of concept vehicle would hit the stage at the SEMA show in Las Vegas, but COVID-19 took care of that option. Instead, Ford instead selected the big Bronco Super Celebration East in Townsend, Tennessee, as its venue to reveal the Bronco Overland concept vehicle.
The basic ingredient for this recipe is the four-door Bronco with the Badlands trim level and painted in the factory’s Area 51 – you gotta love that – paint scheme. The basic powertrain is Ford’s 2.3-liter EcoBoost turbocharged engine linked to the seven-speed manual transmission. To that, Ford has added a WARN winch up front, mounted to a modular steel bumper. Pod lighting is positioned in a roof bar for forward illumination and addition pods mounted around the vehicle for 360-degree lighting of a campsite. Speaking of which, the Bronco Overland boasts a stove and cooking kit at the rear, plus a refrigerator on a slide-out tray. On the roof, and reachable by stowable ladder, is a two-person Yakima tent. Which begs the question: Who remembers that when Chevrolet introduced a hatchback version of the Nova in 1973, you could buy a snap-on kit that turned the rear cargo area, with the hatch raised, into an impromptu tent with fabric sides? Good ideas have a way of returning.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 