Manoli Katakis 
The 2021 Ford Bronco will be officially shown during the “Spring of 2020,” which we believe will be just in time for the Detroit Auto Show, now happening in early June, just after the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix. The 4×4 off-road oriented American SUV is expected to be a fierce competitor to anything that could be considered its rival, such as the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota 4Runner. Tangentially, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 pickup truck could deal with new Bronco cross-shopping, as well.
So we asked folks from FCA and GM how they feel about the inbound Ford Bronco. At least outwardly, nobody seems to mind.
“We’re always in tune with the industry with what’s going on with other OEMs and what suppliers and customers are doing, but our focus is Wrangler and optimizing that… we’re not in a place where we’re reacting to others,” said Kim Mathers, head of Mopar performance and accessories, during a 2019 SEMA backgrounder event, pertaining to the various functions and accessories the Ford Bronco is expected to have.
“If we’re doing our job right, it doesn’t matter what the others do,” she continued.
To the credit of Mopar, Over 90 percent of Jeep Wrangler SUVs have at least one Mopar accessory, while the Gladiator has more than $1,000 in accessories per vehicle, and trends above even the mighty JL Wrangler when it comes to customer personalization.
Crosstown rivals from Chevrolet are also observing, but not outwardly alarmed.
“I guess when (the Bronco) gets here, we’ll evaluate what that means,” said Chevrolet Silverado marketing manager Hugh Milne on the SEMA Show floor.
While the Colorado ZR2 stands as one of the most capable off-road vehicles on the market today, General Motors will continue to avoid offering a mid-size off-road SUV, as most recently such a vehicle was axed during the company’s latest restructuring shakeup a year ago, which we originally reported on.
While the new Bronco was not at the SEMA Show, Ford Performance announced that it will enter the Baja 1000 desert off-road race with the Bronco R prototype racer with a production architecture and production-based EcoBoost engine. Outwardly, the race truck’s sheetmetal hints at what’s to come. Watch this space for more Bronco news as it happens, because it’s definitely not stopping anytime soon.
