Ford Boss Raj Nair Says New Bronco Will Be ‘Completely Unique’ From Everest, But Will Share Chassis

Ford executive vice president and chief technical officer (CTO), Raj Nair, shed some light on the upcoming Bronco SUV and Ranger mid-size pickup truck for North America on the sidelines of the ongoing Detroit Auto Show.

Speaking to Autoline Detroit’s John McElroy, Nair pretty much confirmed what we suspected, including that the new Ranger will be a North American-spec version of the global model, and that the new Bronco will based on the same pickup truck.

“It will fundamentally be the same Ranger we have globally with some changes for U.S. laws, obviously, and also some aspects that U.S. customers are looking for, so slightly modified for the U.S. customer,” explained Nair.

In regards to the new generation of the Bronco, the Ford boss said it will have a footprint that places it in-between the original model from the 1960s and the larger, last generation from the mid-1990s :

“This new Bronco will be based off the Ranger platform and so it’s going to be a similarly sized vehicle to what you see in the Ranger. Now, for our American customers who have never seen that global Ranger, it’s a bit bigger than the Ranger we used to have here in the U.S., so I would say it’s kind of in-between in what you saw with that really big Bronco [the 1992-1996 model], and then the smaller Bronco [1966-1977].”

Asked by McElroy if the new Bronco would be the North American version of the global-market Ford Everest, Nair said:

“No, it’s a separate vehicle. It will be an incremental vehicle from the Everest. The Everest kind of serves a lot of off-road capability; maybe the space of the Explorer serves here in the U.S., but with a body-on-frame construction with a lot more off-road capability for the rest of the world. This Bronco is completely unique from that Everest. It is body-on-frame and so again, focusing on that off-road capability.”

In a way, what Nair said both confirms and refutes some of the comments made by someone claiming to be a Ford designer on an unofficial Reddit AMA the other day: “It will essentially be a rebadged Everest but there will be differences. It will be a 4 door. I definitely can’t discuss pricing in detail but it will be competitive with the Colorado and cheaper than a similar F-150,” wrote the poster.

We say confirms, because both the current Everest and the future Bronco are/will be SUVs based on the global Ranger, and refutes, because while the Reddit poster said it will “essentially be a rebadged Everest with differences”, Nair claims it will be unique. This can be interpreted in many ways, of course, though, we have to assume that he means the Bronco will have completely different bodywork, possibly incorporating elements from the original, as well as Ford’s latest design language.

Ford said the North American Ranger will be introduce in 2019, with the Bronco following in 2020, with both models to be built in Michigan.