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- Robert
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So I posted this on Bronco Nation, but I was curious to see what a non-Ford sponsored forum would have to say. We were on a trip, and my wife saw a couple of new Broncos. We saw a pre-prod model doing testing in the Colorado mountains last year. She liked the look as it was comparable in her mind to the older Land Rovers.
There's a few things they need to do to make it in the garage, though.
Things that are working well:
Off-Road demos: Yeah it's marketing. But it's good marketing with a demonstration.
Door Removal: Mirrors on when doors off, nice. Would like real half doors, but the crash standards prevent that. I don't have 'em with my Jeep either, darnit. Even the new half doors aren't half doors, but 3/4 doors.
Modularity: Leveraging the Fiero innovation, but in a better way to make the fenders more replaceable.
Removable top w/hard and soft options: par for the course, so mandatory, and it works
Goat settings: good thinking here, designing for today's car driver with matching the picture to the view outside.
Tire view/360 degree camera - nice. Nice.
Turn assist - interesting feature, can be pretty useful.
Vinyl seats w/rubberized floors - great idea lifted from the Honda Element.
Dash mounted power connections - super smart.
Things needing sorting:
Winch+front camera: You need to see where you are going and be able to get yourself out of trouble. I went offroading last weekend. I needed the trail camera. When I turned left rather than right on a poorly marked trail, I needed the winch too.
More interior options: Yeah, "any color as long as it's black" but also "Mustang was designed to be designed by you." Big WAF issue here.
More deals. About a year post launch, Jeep dealers would post their standard discounts and methodologies for maximizing incentives to minimize out the door price on the Gladiator. With an April launch, that has some time to go - and hopefully we'll see it happen in a year or so. 190k in sales over 2 years approaches the Wrangler average of 214k/year over the past 4 years.
<minor nit> the Squatch package with all terrain vs mud tires. Yeah people will buy mud tires, but that's post lift/suspension mods.
But the big one is the accessories market. Before my Gladiator arrived, I had half its garage bay full of parts boxes. It was ready to go with a winch that didn't block the front camera, wife steps, lights, a bull bar that didn't block the front camera, a warn winch power interrupt kit, a hard tonneau cover, ski rack parts, and a front runner rack. I'm waiting until next year to buy the offroading rack that mounts to the hard tonneau cover. The winch dropped into the factory bumper w/o a whimper. Without the huge aftermarket, Ford has to close that gap itself out of the gate themselves.
Either Ford or the aftermarket are going to address the issues if Bronco sales keep up. The follow on questions become price point competitiveness and timing of product releases.
I'm really interested to see what happens next.
There's a few things they need to do to make it in the garage, though.
Things that are working well:
Off-Road demos: Yeah it's marketing. But it's good marketing with a demonstration.
Door Removal: Mirrors on when doors off, nice. Would like real half doors, but the crash standards prevent that. I don't have 'em with my Jeep either, darnit. Even the new half doors aren't half doors, but 3/4 doors.
Modularity: Leveraging the Fiero innovation, but in a better way to make the fenders more replaceable.
Removable top w/hard and soft options: par for the course, so mandatory, and it works
Goat settings: good thinking here, designing for today's car driver with matching the picture to the view outside.
Tire view/360 degree camera - nice. Nice.
Turn assist - interesting feature, can be pretty useful.
Vinyl seats w/rubberized floors - great idea lifted from the Honda Element.
Dash mounted power connections - super smart.
Things needing sorting:
Winch+front camera: You need to see where you are going and be able to get yourself out of trouble. I went offroading last weekend. I needed the trail camera. When I turned left rather than right on a poorly marked trail, I needed the winch too.
More interior options: Yeah, "any color as long as it's black" but also "Mustang was designed to be designed by you." Big WAF issue here.
More deals. About a year post launch, Jeep dealers would post their standard discounts and methodologies for maximizing incentives to minimize out the door price on the Gladiator. With an April launch, that has some time to go - and hopefully we'll see it happen in a year or so. 190k in sales over 2 years approaches the Wrangler average of 214k/year over the past 4 years.
<minor nit> the Squatch package with all terrain vs mud tires. Yeah people will buy mud tires, but that's post lift/suspension mods.
But the big one is the accessories market. Before my Gladiator arrived, I had half its garage bay full of parts boxes. It was ready to go with a winch that didn't block the front camera, wife steps, lights, a bull bar that didn't block the front camera, a warn winch power interrupt kit, a hard tonneau cover, ski rack parts, and a front runner rack. I'm waiting until next year to buy the offroading rack that mounts to the hard tonneau cover. The winch dropped into the factory bumper w/o a whimper. Without the huge aftermarket, Ford has to close that gap itself out of the gate themselves.
Either Ford or the aftermarket are going to address the issues if Bronco sales keep up. The follow on questions become price point competitiveness and timing of product releases.
I'm really interested to see what happens next.
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