Ford Bronco vs Ford Escape

What's the difference?

Have you seen that new Ford television commercial filled with its three most adventurous vehicles - the Ranger, Everest and Bronco - driving across a variety of Australian landscapes as people old and young alike have fun in a trio of the Blue Oval’s finest?

No? That’s probably because it doesn’t exist, because Ford Australia doesn’t sell the Bronco SUV here despite the fact it’s the third member of ‘T6’ family alongside the Ranger and Everest.

No vehicle sums up the state of Ford Australia better than the Bronco. It’s a rugged, capable SUV that would seemingly appeal to the Australian market and it’s built on the same underpinnings as the Ranger/Everest (the so-called ‘T6’ platform) that was developed here, in Australia by Ford’s engineering and design teams based in Melbourne.

And yet, despite that, and the fact it obviously has the capability to be made in right-hand drive, Australians are denied access to this reborn icon (Ford’s words).

The problem, it seems, is the Bronco’s popularity in the US market, with orders stretching well beyond a year the company, understandably, wants to make sure it has that resolved before it expands.

At least, that’s what Ford’s global CEO, Jim Farley told CarsGuide in September 2022, leaving the door wide open for the Bronco to eventually make its way down under.

“We can do Bronco and Bronco Sport for the globe for sure,” Farley said. “But we have, like, a year or two order bank so we have a lot of work to do on our capacity before we can even consider something like that.”

He added: “Of course it can be engineered, just like Mustang, but you have to invest in the capacity and it’s like the first or second inning of building up the Bronco line-up.

"It’s a whole family, we’ve just come out with the Heritage, we’ve got Everglades, there’s going to be a lot of iterations so just give us some time.”

And it’s the Bronco Heritage that Mr Farley referenced that this reviewer just spent several days behind the wheel of in the USA, taking it on a cross-country road trip through the country’s south-east and up into Washington.

It was the ideal drive to find out, once and for all, if the Bronco has real potential for the Australian market or if we’re daydreaming on something unworthy of our attention.

We might have been excited to see the new generation Ford Ranger and Ford Everest models in 2022, but the real star of the show for the Blue Oval brand could well be this - its first electrified model to make it to Australia, the new Ford Escape PHEV.

If you’ve seen the letters PHEV before and not understood what it meant, don’t stress - you’re not alone. It stands for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. And what that means is that this car comes with a battery bank and electric motor, a port to plug it in and recharge it to drive on EV power only, and it also has a petrol engine to make sure you’re not stuck when you run out of charge.

I’ll run through all the details on the drivetrain below, but think of it this way - if you want a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid but want the possibility to drive on dedicated electric power for up to (and in excess of) 50 kilometres on a charge, this could be the right car for you…