Here's Our Best Look Yet At Ford's Upcoming Bronco Sport

By Alex Luft - Mar 24, 2020

You may have heard of Ford’s upcoming Bronco Sport, which has represented a significant amount of our coverage here at the Ford Authority over the past year. Otherwise known as the “baby Bronco”, the future Ford model will be the second vehicle in Ford’s revitalized Bronco lineup, slotting underneath the “regular” Bronco. But unlike that “regular” body-on-frame Bronco, the Bronco Sport will be a unibody crossover.

As o this writing, we’ve already shown you spy shots as well as a few photos of the 2021 Bronco Sport undisguised, but the three (relatively low-quality) images that leaked out earlier this month didn’t do the vehicle justice. Luckily, we have new spy photos of a prototype in the latter stages of development that do a better job at showing the rugged CUV, enabling us to see new details that we couldn’t see before.

 

Both the Escape and Bronco Sport ride on the Ford C2 platform, but they look nothing alike. Whereas the baby Bronco’s platform mate, the 2020 Ford Escape, is all about swoopy, car-like lines, the Bronco Sport features a boxy design language that is quite unique.

The upright front end features oval headlight clusters containing a round primary headlight with a halo. It is followed by a horizontal lighting element, which runs toward the grille. Speaking of the grille, this prototype has it wrapped in camo, but we already know that it will have the word “BRONCO” spelled out front and center. The front end also features a pair of circular fog lights along with a pair of toe hooks. The front end is clearly configured in a way so as to maximize the approach angle.

 

The hood is long and flat, slightly tapering at the front as it joins the fascia. All pillars are blacked out, which is something we saw on the leaked images. But what we didn’t see is that the roof features a slight “step up” slightly aft of the B-pillar area. That step-up, along with prominent longitudinal roof rails, explains what the bulky roof camo was hiding on early test units. Along with the raised sheetmetal aft of the forward-leaning C-pillar, the look is somewhat reminiscent to a design trait seen on Land Rovers of yore.

 

The rear end of the 2021 Bronco Sport features a top-hinged liftgate, followed by a pair of tail lights that look similar to those on the “regular” Bronco. The trapezoidal tail lights feature an LED outline, with a set of turn signal indicators and reverse lights inside it. A set of reflectors is placed in the bumper cover, which – much like the front end – seems to be optimized for a capable departure angle.

 

 

Though we can only see gray cladding between the wheels and around the wheel arches, it would seem that it’s also present at the front and rear bumpers, as evidenced by the the absence of swirly camouflage on some parts of those areas. The ensemble rides on gray 17-inch wheels with a double five-spoke pattern.

 

 

At this point, it’s unclear when Ford will debut the 2021 Bronco Sport due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We’ll have more on the baby Bronco soon.

 

 

 

 

SOURCE: FORD AUTHORITY