re: Ford confirms resurrection of Bronco SUV

As someone that works in the car industry and sees what people buy and what people want, if the new Bronco doesn't look a LOT like the Everest and has any less than 4 doors, I will be VERY surprised. I've been selling cars for a year and a half now at the biggest dealership in Montana, which is 100% 4WD truck/SUV country, and I have literally never had a single customer tell me "you know what I REALLY want? A full size 2 door SUV-coupe thing". It's one of those things that people love the idea of but no one would actually use their money to buy one.

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A full size 2 door SUV-coupe thing". It's one of those things that people love the idea of but no one would actually use their money to buy one.

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LOL

Ummmm... heard of the Jeep Wrangler?

FCA sell them at sticker.

It's called a "niche vehicle". It doesn't have broad appeal, but among the people it does appeal to, its appeal is immense, and thus it can be sold at big margins.

Why do you think Lexus still sells GX460s and LX570s? They're not big sellers. It's because the margins on them are among the largest in the business.

Now, would it make sense to engineer such a thing from the ground up (aside from the Wrangler, which Chrysler doesn't introduce new models of often)? No, because the costs are too high and that erodes your margin. But in the case of this Bronco, they've already done it all for the Ranger. Now you just add some sheet metal, tweak a few things, do some badge engineering and some marketing, pay to get it crash tested and whala: Broncos that can be sold at sticker for a huge margin. No matter how few or many, the profit on each one is going to be large.

Why not the Everest? Because there's already an Explorer. The Explorer is a unibody crossover now, which is where most of the market is, like it or not. All a US Everest (which would have to have changes to meet US safety standards) would do is cannibalize Explorer sales WHILE raising Ford's CAFE average (bad). An Everest wouldn't just fill a small niche and be a high margin novely vehicle like a 2 door offroad focused Ranger-based Bronco would, it would be a big seller, but almost all of its sales would come from the Explorer.

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"you know what I REALLY want? A full size 2 door SUV-coupe thing"

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Them

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I wanted one, so i went out and bought one.
use it as a daily driver now. even tote the two small kids in the back, door opens enough and seat slides forward to where it is pretty easy to get them in and out of the car seats.