Ford Bronco vs Ford Maverick

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.

Is this the car Ford Australia is crying out for? 

It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves from afar ever since the Maverick first appeared in the USA in 2021. In simple terms this is an SUV disguised as a ute, or if you prefer to look at it another way, a ute designed for the urban environment. 

Why does Ford Australia need it? Because utes are what it does best and SUVs are what it struggles with. The Ranger is, by some margin, its best-selling model and the F-150 is coming to a showroom near you soon, while the Escape SUV has been dropped due to consistently low sales. 

The Maverick isn’t quite a true replacement for the Falcon ute, but it’s arguably closer in concept than the more rugged Ranger.

It’s the kind of vehicle that should pacify people calling for Subaru to bring back the Brumby. In other words, this is a vehicle that has the potential (key word) to appeal to a broad audience; even more so than the niche Bronco off-roader.

There's a significant catch, though. Ford doesn’t make it in right-hand drive.

Fortunately for CarsGuide we were recently given the opportunity to sample the Maverick in the USA getting behind the wheel of the XLT Tremor variant in Los Angeles, California.