Ford Bronco

The cabin of the Ford Bronco Sport looks slightly different from that of the regular Bronco and impresses with the high levels of fit and finish and equipment it gets. You have three dual-tone upholsteries to choose from – Ebony and Active Orange, Ebony and Area 51, and Ebony and Roast Leather.

The driver’s cockpit of the Ford Bronco has a chunky-looking four-spoke multi-functional steering wheel and a TFT instrument console with analog dials behind it. The centre console looks authoritative with its wide layout and gets a free-mounted touchscreen infotainment system with vertically-laid AC vents on either of its sides.

There is a small storage cavity below the infotainment screen, which gets the push start-stop button beside it. The lower centre console has a broad-looking panel for the dual-zone automatic climate control, while the transmission tunnel accommodates a rotary dial for the transmission and drive mode selector. Other prominent features of this five-seater SUV include a single pane sunroof, powered front seats with memory function for the driver seat, rear AC vents, leather upholstery, and many more. Space levels inside the cabin are impressive, with the Bronco Sport getting a cavernous boot compartment.

On the outside, the Ford Bronco Sport seeks a lot of inspiration from the regular Bronco but has got its individualistic appeal, which makes it more of an urban haulier. The boxy shape and heightened stance of the Bronco Sport give it a strong and mighty road presence, which is further enhanced by its large dimensions.

At the front, the Ford Bronco Sport shares its face with the regular version of the Bronco, with a wide front grille engulfing the headlamps on either end. The wide Bronco lettering embossed on the front grille screams attention, while the LED projectors are integrated within rounded rectangular headlamp housings. There are fine strips of daytime running LEDs in the middle of the headlamp housings which stretch out towards the Bronco lettering. The front bumper looks tough, as it is finished in the black plastic cladding.

The Ford Bronco has a boxy appeal when viewed from the side, with an upright bonnet, flat design for the fenders and door panels, large angular windows and pillars, and big rounded wheel arches. The Badlands Edition in which the Bronco Sport is being offered in the Philippines comes with 17-inch grey painted aluminum wheels. Compared to the regular Bronco, the Bronco Sport comes with smaller and more usable rearview mirrors and larger roof rails.

At the back, the Ford Bronco Sport misses out on the tailgate-mounted spare wheel and gets a flatter design for the boot lid. The boot lid here comes with two horizontally laid carved housings, with the upper one getting the wide nameplate of the vehicle and the lower one getting the door handle. The overall design of the boot lid looks a tad too simple compared to the rest of the SUV. There are vertically laid tail lamps, which have curved outer edges with LED inserts just adjacent to them. Like the front, the rear bumper is a heavy-looking all-black plastic unit, giving a tough look to the SUV from the rear.

Compared to the regular Bronco, the all-wheel-drive Ford Bronco Sport feels more comfortable to drive on the smoother tarmacs, with the SUV getting independent suspension on all four wheels. The SUV also features G.O.A.T. (Goes Over Any Terrain) modes, which include Rock Crawl, Sand, Mud/ruts, Normal, Eco, and Sport for a personalized driving experience. The Badlands model on offer in the Philippines also gets a twin-clutch rear differential which can serve as a rear differential locker and has torque vectoring as well.

For the Philippines market, the Ford Bronco Sport is available solely with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost engine, which is coupled to an 8-speed automatic gearbox. The maximum power and torque outputs of this turbo-charged petrol engine are rated at 245 bhp and 373 Nm.

The Ford Bronco Sport gets an exhaustive list of safety features, some of which are airbags all around, pre-collision assist with autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot information system with cross-traffic alert, lane keep assist, rearview camera, auto high beam headlamps, adaptive cruise control with stop and go function and lane centering, evasive steering assist, auto hold, post-collision braking, trail control, front 180-degree camera, and rain-sensing wipers.

The Ford Bronco Sport is one of the best products which have come from the house of Blue Oval for a long time. It looks every bit of a proper SUV, and on the road and off-the-road, it behaves like one as well.