When Ford resurrected the Bronco nameplate, they did not just build another family crossover with a rugged plastic body kit. They engineered a direct, uncompromising shot across the bow of the dedicated off-road segment. Built with a retro-futuristic design that nods heavily to its 1960s ancestors, the modern Bronco balances surprisingly composed highway manners with a mechanical, mountain-climbing foundation. It is an incredibly customizable tool that makes the daily commute feel like an expedition.
The Bronco has settled beautifully into its current generation, refining its package options and cabin tech while protecting the analog, enthusiast-driven features that made it a hit in the first place. Whether you are using it to crawl over rocks or crawl through the mall parking lot, it injects a distinct sense of occasion into every drive. Here are our three favorite things about the 2026 Ford Bronco.
1. The Widely Available Sasquatch Package
Historically, if you wanted a vehicle equipped with maximum off-road armor straight from the factory floor, manufacturers forced you to pony up for the absolute highest, most expensive trim level. Ford completely flipped the script with the Sasquatch package. By making this heavy-duty hardware suite an option group available nearly across the entire lineup, even on the more accessible entry-level trims, you can skip the luxury leather and tech markups if all you really care about is mechanical tier-one capability.
The Sasquatch package transforms the Bronco into a genuine mountain goat. It bakes in massive 35-inch Goodyear mud-terrain tires wrapped around 17-inch beadlock-capable wheels, electronic locking differentials on both the front and rear axles, a shorter 4.70 final-drive ratio, and a high-clearance HOSS suspension with position-sensitive Bilstein dampers. Combined with the Bronco’s inherently excellent approach and departure angles, this setup gives you an impressive 11.6 inches of ground clearance right out of the box, letting you comfortably conquer terrain that would leave standard SUVs stranded.
2. An Enthusiast Manual Transmission Experience
We live in a shift-by-wire world where finding a third pedal in a modern vehicle feels like locating a needle in a haystack. Yet, Ford continues to offer a 7-speed manual gearbox on the Bronco’s punchy 2.3-liter EcoBoost 4-cylinder engine. In an era where driving has largely become an exercise in passive isolation, rowing your own gears in a high-riding, boxy 4×4 provides an engaging, mechanical connection to the road that an automatic transmission simply cannot replicate.
The real tactical trick here is seventh gear, which is actually a dedicated, ultra-low crawler gear marked with a “C” on the shift knob. Boasting an incredibly deep 6.58:1 ratio, it acts as a mechanical torque multiplier. When you drop the transfer case into 4-Low and engage the crawler gear, you can let your feet completely off the pedals, and the Bronco will steadily walk itself up steep rock faces and out of mud pits at less than one mph without stalling the engine. Sure, you cannot pair this transmission with the larger 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 engine, but the sheer joy and trail control of the manual makes that a compromise we are more than willing to make.
3. The Pure, Unfiltered Open-Air Experience
At its core, the Bronco is built to dissolve the barrier between you and the environment. Thanks to a modular body design, the entire roof structure comes off, and all side doors can be removed in a matter of minutes with a few basic tools included in the glovebox. Because Ford chose to mount the side-view mirrors directly to the body cowl rather than the doors themselves, you do not lose your rearward visibility or have to mess with aftermarket mirror kits when you strip the truck down.
Driving a completely open-air Bronco elevates a mundane drive into something genuinely unparalleled, even if sometimes impractical. When the weather behaves, running local weekend errands suddenly feels like an outdoor sport, and crawling down a shaded forest trail, with the smell of the pines and the rush of the wind (and, unfortunately, dust) filling the cabin, is an experience that fixed-roof vehicles cannot hope to match. Just be mindful of the weather.
Read More on the 2026 Ford Bronco
Read our full review of the Ford Bronco, find this week’s Fair Purchase Price, or see Ford Bronco models for sale near you.
