(horse neighs) - By now we've all seen
the new 2021 Ford Bronco. And you know what? It looks pretty freaking cool. I don't go camping very often. I don't own a single piece
of Patagonia clothing. Hell I hate hiking, but man, do I wanna get out in
nature in this thing? The Bronco is an icon, an OG in the sport utility vehicle game. And, it had a rival. One that was also recently rebooted. But unlike the Bronco, nobody really cared about this remake. Why does the Broncos
slap, but not the pleaser. Today we're gonna look at a few things Chevy might've done wrong, but also why those
mistakes might not matter. Be nice, I'll see you next time. Big, thank you to Raycon for sponsoring this episode of wheelhouse. I'm pretty busy guy, that's why I can only talk
to you while I'm on set. But after I pop in my Raycon
every day E25 ear buds, I drift into automotive bliss. Raycon's coming up lots of cool colors so I can coordinate them
to my shorts sort of. And the best part is
they cost half as much as other premium earbuds,
but sound just as good. Which is why my celebrity
friends like Snoop Dogg and Melissa Etheridge also rock Raycons. When I pop these Raycon E25 in, people know not to bother me on set. - Hey Nolan, Nolan! You can't just say, be
nice and see you next time. We gotta run the rest of the episode. - If you wanna rock your
own Raycon everyday E25's, head on over
buyraycon.com/donut for 15% off. That's buyraycon.com/donut,
or hit the link in the description for
15% off your Raycons. Get some today. The crossover SUV has taken
over the market here in the US. So it could be hard to
remember, what SUV stood for in the first place, Sport Utility Vehicle,
keyword being sport. While the SUV of today are
based on either truck platforms or their own unibody bodies. The original SUV's we're
a little more sporty. I'm talking off roaders. The ancestor of the entire
segment is the Jeep, specifically the CJ5. The Kaiser corporation
released the Jeep CJ5 in 1955. It was designed to be more comfortable for the growing number of
people who are gaining interest in a growing scene called off-roading. The CJ5 was just as capable off-road as its militarized counterpart, but more usable in the day to day. This was great because
people could drive their Jeep to work during the week,
and go hit the trails on the weekend with the same vehicle. - Bringing fun and recreation to many, it is used by hunters,
fishermen, and campers to reach places inaccessible
to the ordinary car. - This practicality paved
the way for off-roading to become America's
latest automotive craze in the mid fifties. Events like the Jeep
Jamboree showed manufacturers that there was a demand for
off-road capable vehicles, not just the Jeep. One car maker answered the call in 1961. And it wasn't one of the big three. International was known
more for their tractors, than any sort of passenger vehicle. But in 1960, they dropped
what could be considered the first sport utility
vehicle, the scout 80. It was meant to be extremely
practical and reliable, a true workhorse that international said would quotes "replace the horse." International it's 1960, okay. I'm pretty sure the horse
has already been replaced. Get a clue. With a bunch of roof types available and a pickup style bed, the
scout lived up to expectations. And international built over a hundred thousand
of them, in five years. With the tractor making
selling that many road cars, it was official, the trend was
real, or at least would be. Ford was kinda caught
with their pants down and needed an SUV of
their own to fill the gap. Believe it or not, Ford actually
had their own off roader before the Bronco was a
twinkle in anyone's eyes. Like Kaiser and international,
Ford was deeply involved in military manufacturing,
and as a result, had their own version of the Jeep called the military utility
tactical truck or M.U.T.T. Like Kaiser and
international, Ford figured, the people would want a capable off roader in the spirit of a military vehicle that was comfortable enough
to drive to the grocery store. But Ford wanted to go even
further than international and would target their competitors flaws. In 1962, Ford pulled a gangster move and surveyed Jeep and scout owners asking them what they didn't
like about their cars. What they found out was that, contemporary off roaders
had crap ride quality, were down on power and
had horrible road noise. Ford saw a real need to be filled and got to work on their own SUV. In October of 1963, They must have really been
leaning into naming cars after horses like the Mustang, because the new project was
given the code name Bronco. Apparently there's a real barn yard vibe going on over there in Dearborn. The first Bronco sketches were done by designer McKinley Thompson. The first African American
auto designer at Ford, The engineering team spent
about a year after that honing the Bronco into a
practical off-road superstar. A car that Ford would have
to coin an all new term for, sports utility vehicle. We talked about earlier SUV's, but this was the first one
to actually be called that. Upon release In 1965, the Bronco came in three distinct versions for every buyer's wants and needs. There was the convertible
style Bronco Roadster, the sport utility with
a bed like the scout and the wagon with a
tailgate and full roof. The variety really makes
me think about the state of the market today. Can you imagine, if someone came out with a convertible SUV right now! It'd sell like 200 of them,
I was gonna make a joke about the Nissan Murano
crap, class crap, (beeps). I was going to make a joke about the Nissan Murano cross
Cabriolet sales figures, but it looks like Nissan
actually includes those with the regular Murano numbers. So there's not a liable way to tell how many of those
things they actually sold. Very sneaky Nissan. Anyway, to help market the
Bronco Ford lean into marketing, the lifestyle, offering
accessories like snowplows and winches, the addition
of a V8 engine option 1966 Meant the Bronco now had a lot more kick, which meant it was great
for off road racing. The Bronco wins that legendary events like the mini 400 and the Baja 1000 along with adventure racing prowess was now a huge part of the Bronco mythos. And it had only been
around for a few years. The truth is, the Bronco
could have been around for only one generation, and it would have been
remembered by Ford fans forever. But lucky for the blue oval, the idea of the SUV had
a lot of staying power. The Bronco wouldn't be the
last sport utility vehicle to come out of Detroit. After watching Ford get
caught with their pants down and develop their own for the masses, Chevy realized their shorts
were on the floor as well. And scrambled to make their
own fashionable four Wheeler. Because Chevy was chasing Ford, they didn't have the luxury of starting from the ground up like
the Bronco team did. Instead, Chevy adapted their
existing CK truck platform for fun having Duty's. Chevy's SUV went by the name blazer. And since it was
basically a smaller truck, it was bigger than the Bronco
in nearly every metric. which isn't exactly what you want off-road but, since it came standard
with four wheel drive and was visually impressive, Chevy fans were stoked regardless. The Bronco and blazer duked it
out in epic combat for years with Ford actually mirroring
Chevy by moving the Bronco onto the F 100 truck platform, in 1978. It was probably a lot
cheaper to manufacture than the standalone
platform or the first jet. So the Bronco was becoming less of what made it so revolutionary, but that didn't really matter because people were buying them. Bronco sales reached their peak in 1979 with more than 104,000 sold. But with the fallout of
the second gas crisis that same year, the American public started demanding more fuel efficient options. In a strange example of parallel thinking, both Ford and Chevy released
a smaller fuel sipping variant of their full size SUV's. Chevy debuted the S 10 blazer
based on the S 10 truck in 1982 and four followed suit
introducing the Bronco II, based on the ranger small truck in 1983. The rivalry had gone from
full size to ini mini but both of these mini
versions were much smaller than the full size offering. And in some way, helped recapture the original SUV spirit. They were still four wheel
drive, they had two doors, but they're smaller stature made them more maneuverable off-road. Unfortunately for Ford though, the Bronco too was not
long for this world. From the beginning, the
Bronco was doomed to fail. Engineers working on the
SUV found that the Bronco II had an unusually low stability index, which is calculated using
the car center of gravity in the track width of the tires. Long story short, the Bronco
tee was prone to rollovers, but instead of fixing the problems, Ford leadership rushed
the car into production planning on fixing the issues later. But the cat was out of the bag
when the car went to market and according to Ford, they faced over a hundred lawsuits related to the Bronco II and
they settled in 50 of them. Time magazine reported in 2001, that ford had spent
$2.4 billion in damages, to all these lawsuits, and was apparently paying out
settlements as late as 2012. These lawsuits are why the Bronco II only lasted for six years and
was replaced by the Explorer, which had its own rollover issues. At this time, SUV sales were exploding throughout the industry. But the Bronco was having an
increasingly difficult time justifying its existence
within the Ford lineup. Larger four-door models, like
the Explorer and expedition gave buyers a lot more room without compromising on
a top living exterior. A lot of people say the
whole OJ Simpson chase killed the Bronco, but
it was simple economics. It wasn't making money. So in 1996, the Bronco was killed and presumably rendered into glue. The blazer lived on living
a somewhat confusing life. It got bigger and Chevy
renamed it to the Tahoe. They redesigned the S 10 blazer and drop the S 10 part of the name in 95. Then in 99, they added
the trailblazer tram, which became its own model In 2002, the blazer proper was killed in 2005. And the trailblazer followed in 2009, thus ending a 40 year rivalry. I have to think that
without the Bronco around which was the sole reason
of the blazers creation, that it had a hard time staying focused and thus had a harder time
fitting in the Chevy lineup. It sad. Pretty much as soon as Ford
killed the Bronco back in 96, Bronco fans were clamoring for
a new one and surprisingly, they didn't have to wait very long. At the 2004 North American
international auto show, Ford showed off a brand
new Bronco concept. They were on a major retro
kick around that time. The S197 Mustang looked
like the first gen Mustang. The Thunderbird looked
like this and the SVT team was cooking up a new GT supercar to celebrate the 40 year
anniversary of their Lamar victory. It made sense for a Bronco
to be in that lineup. I never really thought about it until researching this episode, but man, the Bronco was a huge
part of the blue ovals cultural domination of the sixties. If we think of Ford cause
like Mario party, for example, the Mustang is Mario, the GT 40 is Toby cause he's small and fast. The Bronco is Bowzer and
the Thunderbird is legi. Cause he looks weird. It looked like the gang
was getting back together, and better than ever. The Bronco concept had
a two liter turbo diesel and a nitrous system to boost power. What the hell? It also had a few key throw back features like an open roof and circular headlights and of course four wheel drive. Unfortunately for Bronco heads, it wasn't to be, gas
would get more expensive. Smaller crossover SEBS
were about to take over, and a recession was gonna hit. So, the 2004 Bronco
concept never worked out, but it did give people hope that new one would happen eventually. And it did, on July 13th of this year, Ford took to the airwaves on
three separate TV networks to play three separate
mini docs on the Bronco. And then finally unveiled
it for 2021 model year. I didn't watch all the documentaries except for that 11 minute reveal video. And I wasn't the only one either. A lot of you probably saw it too. It hit number one on the trending page. And as of right now, it's
got more than 3 million views or about six times as many
as our 50th episode dot, which I don't understand. It had original music, I wore
a wig, It should have killed. Anyway, for the next couple of days, you couldn't escape the
Bronco height machine. There wasn't collective stoke like this for new car since the CA
Corvette and honestly, I don't think there will
be for a while, but why? Well let's look at the dang thing. It's clear that Ford is
trying to capture the spirit of the original Bronco. The 2021 has a removable roof and doors and will be available with
either two or four doors, a first for the Bronco. In that reveal, Ford says
that the original Bronco quote reshaped the four
by four landscape forever. And that the new one is gonna do it again. That's some very big talk. If you're a bit cynical like me, you might expect all the
glorification of the outdoors present in the reveal
video to be just talk, but it doesn't look like that's the case. Lots of companies like to
employ lifestyle branding. For example, I don't know, knives. Here's a seven inch
combat knife by Ontario. If you go on their website, you'll see their combat knives
staged on some cammo netting with an American flag. I saw that and was like, hell yeah, that lifestyle is bad ass. I live a badass lifestyle,
I'm gonna buy a knife. In reality, I'm not a badass. I've never been in combat with my knife. It just sits next to my bed. And I'm in the worst shape of my life. If I kill anyone, it's going to be by
smothering my girlfriend after I eat a big meal
and I fall asleep on her. The point is, the branding worked . Quick note Joe, snuck that line in on me. And I'm not happy about it. And if I actually do
kill someone, (beeps). People like to feel like
they're part of a lifestyle, even if they really
aren't, and that's okay. I have no problem with that. As long as the product that
is marketed in that way, can back it up. And the Bronco, I think it can. I won't dive too deep into
the marketing materials, the Bronco. If you wanna know all
the specs and features, you can look those up on your own. But what I will say, is
that this thing has crazy, ground clearance crazy
approach and departure angles, and crazy good torque off in the factory. I mean, I haven't driven it yet, but from what I've read
from people who have, the Bronco is the real deal. But besides the numbers and figures, what really trips me
out about this machine is how closely the reveal and
rollout matches the original. When the first one dropped,
America was in the beginning of the first off-road creates. I would argue, that we're in the beginning of another one right now. I don't know about you, but I've been feeling
pretty damn cooped up. I don't even like camping that much, but after watching that reveal, I could definitely go for that right now. I think we're seeing a resurgence in enjoying the great outdoors, not to mention the huge
trend that is overlanding, which has a lot to do with
putting a tent on top of your rig and getting sick shots for the gram. The Bronco seems prime
for that sort of thing. In 65, the Bronco had
three distinct versions depending on what you needed. And guess what, they did that again. They've got the two door,
four door and the sport, a smaller vehicle which does not shared the same platform as a
two door and four door, but still it's very interesting. My buddy Jason lives on Tahoe,
he just got a mountain bike. He rock climbs and
drives a Subaru Outback. The Bronco sport was aimed
squarely at people like Jason. What up Jason? Another interesting parallel is the appeal to motor sports credibility. Just like how Ford gave factory support to off-road races Back in the sixties, a skunk works division within
Ford built their own Bronco Baja 1000 racer called the Bronco r, And it actually competed in
the 2019 running last November. Ford wanted to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of their first Baja win, but
it didn't go exactly to plan. There was a huge rainstorm
the day before the race, which turned the entire course into mud. which caused a lot of issues
and a competing vehicle actually landed on the
Bronco during the run, after spending hours in the
pits to fix their issues. The Bronco r finished second to last, 37 seconds before the
official cutoff time. It's a bummer, but I think
they'll do better next time. Something that didn't parallel
the original Broncos rollout is worth mentioning. Ford was late to the game. Chevy already had a contender
waiting for their old rival. Actually Chevy had two, the blazer and trailblazer
were already back. At the very end of 2018 Chevy
began selling the new blazer. And in April of last
year, it's little brother, the trailblazer followed. So Chevy beat Ford to market this time. But did they hit the same nostalgia Mark, I'm wanna put a picture of the Chevy cars, next to some pics of the Broncos. Do you see a difference? Look, I'm sure they're great cars, but when that Bronco video dropped, Chevy must have (beeps) their paints. The blazers just don't have it. The blazer proper looks like a Camaro and the trailblazers little small boy. I won't make any bones about it. The new blazer and
trailblazer were not designed with the same philosophy
as the new Bronco. Chevy might lead you to believe that with the trailblazer active
and the outdoorsy vibe, the web page puts off, but there's really nothing
Off-road centric about this car besides the all wheel drive,
some Hancock sport train tires and revised suspension
tuned for gravel roads. It's not a serious off-roader. The same goes for the blazer. The sportiest version is the RS. It's got a V6 and looks like a Camaro. I've read that this thing was
basically supposed to drive like a V6 Camaro SUV, and
it's succeeds at doing that. It's unfortunate that the blazer name is being used for something
other than off-road prowess like the Bronco, but I
think there's a good reason, Chevy is fine with doing that. These cars are selling. In the first quarter of this year, Chevy's sold over 22,000 blazers, just a little less than in
the last quarter of last year. And on top of that, the trailblazer is doing really well too. According to iseecar.com, new trailblazers spend
an average of 19 days on dealership lots before being sold, making them the fastest
selling cars in America. Why is that? Well, at least Chevy's
might not be off-road beasts like the Bronco, but I've read that there
are of very good value and with the crazy demand for crossovers like the blazer and trail blazers, that's what gets people to the dealership. What I want to see ,Chevy turn the blazer into something that could
take on the Bronco, yes! Do I also understand why
they didn't, also yes. So that's the episode. If you like this video, we put out videos almost
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