The much anticipated return of the 2021 Ford Bronco was unveiled Monday night.
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"There is just a loyal and passionate group of customers and employees who were begging for this product to come back," Ford U.S. Consumer Marketing Manager Mark Grueber said.
The Bronco brand is returning after the popular SUV was out of production for nearly 25 years.
Offered in seven different two-door and four-door models and trim levels, company officials believe the new Bronco takes on and off-road experiences to a new level.
But some are wondering about its unveiling during a nationwide pandemic.
"What Ford did was navigate this, which is difficult on all of us and they found a way to bring the vehicle to market by using digital content," Mike Caudill said.
Caudill is a national auto transportation expert and a Bronco owner.
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"The nostalgia is there for me because it carries that same look from 1966 to the current look of 2021," Caudill said.
When the Bronco was first introduced in the 1960's, it was a big hit.
"It was used by police departments. It was used by forest rangers. It was used by people that ran ranches," Ford Archives and Heritage Brand Manager Ted Ryan said. "If you were an off-roader you could take your Bronco anywhere and do anything with it."
The new Bronco is designed even more for the off-road enthusiast.
"It is really set up for purpose built, kind of off-road capability," Grueber said. "It has all the functional kind of hardware to do that."
Interest is already high and sales are expected to be robust.
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"Ford Bronco sales will be through the roof," Caudill said. "When they launched the vehicle, they had 3,500 units they called the first edition. They sold out in less than 12 hours with a deposit of $100 dollars."
A smaller Bronco Sport will arrive in dealerships later this year.
Grueber says the bigger Bronco, the two and four-door, will go into production next year and arrive in the spring of 2021.
"I am so excited that we are bringing it back," Ryan said. "It shares so much of the DNA with the first generation of the Bronco and we are just about to release it into the wild."
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