Ford wants the Bronco to become the Porsche of off-road vehicles

Yahoo Finance Senior Autos Reporter Pras Subramanian discusses how Ford is leveraging the "Bronco phenomenon" to transition from selling mere functionality to a high-margin lifestyle brand through enthusiast events like the Bronco Off-Roadeo.

The story really isn't about off-rodeo. It's more about the Bronco phenomenon, right? That's what the story is about. It's about how this is not just a product, it's it's a lifestyle, right? So so what did Ford do? They kind of leaned in on that on that, you know, that Bronco history, right? So Bronco's been around for for and they're now on the sixth generation, right? For the 60s, 70s, that car was beloved by people, right?

Uh and then eventually Bronco was was cancelled uh and then brought back 26, 25 years later uh in 2021, right? So and here we are with the new Bronco and and they they Ford did a fantastic job with the design. The styling is retro perfect. A lot of people saying that they just nailed it, right? So you're asking, why am I seeing this car everywhere? Well, you know, SUVs are very popular in America. They're the most popular uh body style because it's, you know, you have a lot of things to carry, we got to go to Costco and things like that.

But guess what? The Bronco also marries that functionality with just sort of romanticism about going outside, being out being outdoors, going everywhere. And this truck is a very capable truck. And you just saw that statistic there. Sales are up almost 34%, right? To 146,000 Broncos sold last year. It's a big hit. And it's not just because of the functionality, it's because of the lifestyle.

I like this in your piece, Jim Farley has something here, which I think is interesting. He says he wants Ford to become the Porsche of off-road. What did he mean by that, Mr. Farley?

He understands that if you want to get people to buy a car beyond just the functionality, you got to build enthusiasm. You got to make it feel that as if the truck is something different, right? So, you know, speaking of that, I went to off-rodeo, right? So basically,

Explain what this was by the way, what you did.

So, so off-rodeo is essentially for Bronco owners get a one-day pass to go to these experiences that are located in Austin, Texas, uh in New Hampshire, uh in Moab, Utah, and they're one day basically

Where were you there?

Uh this is Austin, Texas, in the hill country. So basically they take you, you learn about the truck, and then you're going on a pretty intense uh trail riding with not just mud, ruts, there's even, I mean there's there's intense rock bouldering. I was shocked at how capable this vehicle is. I mean Ford really really put that into the vehicle uh to make to make you know, this is an actual capable car.

What were you in by the way? Were the Badlands model, what they have you?

Yes. I was in a two-door uh Badlands uh Bronco uh on Mac transmission.

Two door is great looking by the way.

Two actually this is me right here. Uh this video plays. This is me actually um going up this really intense um bouldering situation here. I mean the car goes you can't see it there

the two-door in a Badlands model is a great look.

It is. It really is. But you mentioned about Farley, right? a Porsche of off-road, right? So basically Porsche commands a higher premium and better margins because it's got that

Look at you navigating by the way. Look at this.

Well, this guy is helping me there. Uh he's helping me go through. You see he's saying, he's saying, you know what he says? He says, passenger, passenger. It means turn to the passenger. driver, driver, turn to the driver. So I'm doing this and this is actually a it doesn't look this way, but it's actually a very steep incline.