The big moment has come and gone: Ford has finally released all of the details about the 2021 Ford Bronco Sport and its big brother, the standard Ford Bronco. It was a day of great celebration within the auto industry. Here, at last, was something people seemed to actually care about. Whether it was because Ford initially scheduled the big announcement on the birthday of a particular ex-football star, or the fact that most folks have little else to do at the moment, the reveal was big news.
And now that we’re sorting through the afterbirth of the announcement, knee-deep in the various fluids of Ford’s all-new SUV dynamo, one thing has become shockingly clear: there’s some stuff Ford doesn’t want you to know. I’ve had a good look at the Bronco and the Bronco Sport, and I can tell you that I saw things, with my own eyes, that they don’t want you to know about. That’s my job in the auto news and information industry: to peel back the heavy curtain of spin and deception and tell you what’s really going on.
Well, friends, what’s really going on will shock you to your core.
Unnoticed Interior Details
Let’s start with the inside and see what Ford has done to the interior of the Bronco Sport. Yes, I’m focusing on the Bronco Sport today because it has some “features” that you especially need to know about. The Bronco is its own hornet’s nest of secret options and bizarre details, but we don’t have time for that today.
The upholstery of the Bronco Sport is a synthetic proto-cloth known as “gibbersilk” that one reviewer I talked to described as “creamy, yet gelatinous.” I had to see this for myself and managed to sneak my way into the Ford press room where they were showing off the Bronco Sport. While the Ford folks were distracted by the scent of dolphin meat (always keep some dolphin bacon with you for this type of infiltration), I managed to get into the Bronco Sport and have a seat.
Creamy, yet gelatinous is exactly right. Imagine the perfect middle ground between a fruity gelatin dessert and a rich, vanilla pudding. Now imagine yourself sitting on that, feeling your rotund posterior sink into the velvety depths of its glutinous cushioning, allowing it to know your every curve and muscle. That’s exactly the experience you’ll get when you feel the gibbersilk for yourself. I’ll tell you this: it left me wanting more!
Also, the Ford Bronco Sport doesn’t have speakers, not as you or I know them anyhow. Instead, the interior holds a series of tiny, hamster-sized creatures that look like people, people with no arms or legs, just a massive belly with a huge mouth across it. These little creatures scream and shriek to you, giving voice to the music you play or the podcast you listen to. It’s a haunting, beautiful sound with a richness and depth to it that I’ve found only once before, but that’s none of your business.
A Unique Engine
The engine in the 2021 Ford Bronco Sport is also unlike anything I’ve seen before. When I managed to get a look under the hood and see it for myself, I was spellbound. Rather than a typical internal combustion engine or even some sort of animal-vegetable hybrid, the Bronco Sport is powered by a system of fluid-filled bladders.
As I looked further, I realized the entire powertrain, and much of the vehicle’s chassis consists of these inflating and deflating fleshy sacs. The mysterious fluid within them (which looks like milk but tastes like a melted grape popsicle) pumps throughout the system of bladders, and as it does so, it provides power to the axles and the wheels in turn. When you apply the brakes, the fluid moves the opposite direction through the system, bringing everything to a halt.
It’s a bold, stunning example of American automotive engineering, and I think we’re going to see a lot more vehicles using a system of fluid-filled bladders for their powertrain. When I asked about the transmission, the Ford technician simply smiled in a way that showed all 147 of his teeth and reassured me that such questions are not meant to be answered. I assume that means it’s a continuously variable transmission rather than an 8-speed or 9-speed like I had hoped. Pity.
Bold Exterior Styling
A lot of people are talking about the look of the exterior of the Bronco Sport, which is understandable. Yet, if you haven’t seen the vehicle in person, then you don’t fully appreciate what it has going on. You see, when a still image is captured on camera – or even a series of still images through a video camera – it catches only a single position of the vehicle in that instant, which means it looks perfectly normal.
When you see the all-new Ford Bronco Sport in-person with your own eyes, however, it is a vastly different experience. The Bronco Sport exists in a sort of super-position of numerous locations in space at any given time. While a camera captures only one such position at the moment the picture is taken, when you look at it with your eyes, you can see these numerous positions all occurring simultaneously.
The experience is difficult to describe. One person I talked to said it was, “like having my eyes replaced by kaleidoscopes and not being able to stop them from spinning.” Another insider that had a good look at the Bronco Sport told me, “Lights spiraling together in a whirl of forgotten colors, transcendent agony in a heartbeat.” Having seen it for myself, I can tell you that these descriptions are flowery nonsense. It looks like staring at a disco ball inside a hall of mirrors after one-too-many drinks and smells a lot like it too.
An Unusual Special Edition
Although we all expected a Special Edition or two for such an anticipated new vehicle, nothing could prepare us for the Ford Bronco Sport Limited “Juice” Special Edition. I haven’t had a chance to check out all the specs on this impressive new edition, but I know that it comes only in white and has a speed limit of 35mph. This is both a maximum and minimum – it can only drive at 35mph.
Despite this speed limit, it can drive 2.5 miles in about 9 minutes, though some sources suggest it takes longer – perhaps even 30 minutes or more. According to a leaked document, the Juice Special Edition comes with interior blood stains planted there by police officers, as well as drops of blood on the exterior near the handle. One Ford engineer said of the special edition that it’s, “Guilty of murdering the competition.”
That seems in poor taste to me, but who am I to judge? No matter how you look at it, the Juice Special Edition is certainly an impressive vehicle – though I feel like opinions will be divided on it for many years to come.
Editor’s Note: We reached out to Ford for official confirmation on any of this material, and the statement we received could best be described as a crude drawing of an obscene gesture. After conferring with our legal team, we’ve been told this can be considered a confirmation according to current US law, and we’re safe to publish this report without fear of legal recourse. Even if not, we’d still do it, because that’s what heroes do! Thank you.
