Despite its unfortunate launch timing and the resulting teething issues, Ford’s revival of the Bronco 4×4 has been a resounding success, attracting both off-road enthusiasts and casual 4×4 buyers who simply wanted an alternative to the market’s only true mainstream competitor, the Jeep Wrangler.
Like the Jeep, the Bronco is one of few mass-market cars still available with a stick, and the well-received gearbox has been popular since the SUV’s launch in 2021—so popular that it’s easy to forget that the most desirable of the car’s launch configurations was locked behind an automatic transmission. Ford’s choice to firewall the Sasquatch package behind the slushbox felt especially egregious because Ford had made a big to-do about allowing customers to opt into the off-road bits even on the most basic Bronco. Forcing customers to also select the automatic felt like it was in conflict with that ethos.
That barrier was short-lived. Enthusiasts spoke loudly and in number, and Ford listened. By 2022, it was possible to order the ‘Squatch with the six-speed. And if the company had it all to do over again, that would have been the case at launch, Bronco development engineer Seth Goslawski told The Drive in an exclusive interview.
“Um, yeah, launching with the Sasquatch package obviously was a disruptor to this segment, and and even to like the off-road kind of industry, right?” Goslawski said. “It kind of set a new bar, I would say.”
“If you remember when we launched in ’21 , like you said, the Sasquatch package you could get on everything except the manual,” Goslawski said. “And I’d say there was almost like an outcry from all the enthusiasts. And we reacted—pretty much within a model year.”
Indeed, and not just by offering the combo on a niche, expensive model. Ford shuffled things around to make it possible to order the base Bronco with the ‘squatch and six-speed; you could do the same on the Big Bend, Black Diamond and Badlands. Ford has since shuffled the packages around in a 2025 consolidation that will go down as the closest thing the new Bronco received to a mid-cycle refresh.
“Okay, we hear you, we should have launched with the with the [Sasquatch] manual,” Goslawski recalled thinking.
With the current lineup, the Bronco truly embodies the a-la-carte approach Ford promised when it launched.
“If you want to get a base base Bronco and then check that Sasquatch box, [you can],” Goslawski said. “Because, as you know, it’s so hard to do final drive swaps and have, you know, the drive line upgraded, all that kind of stuff. So, it’s kind of the the easy factory integration that you can get with that.”
But as Goslawski notes, the sky remains the limit. And ever since the Sasquatch incident, Ford is better prepared to respond to new and shifting customer interests.
“If you’re wanting to do something crazy, you can go get a base Bronco, check that, and you know, build it up the way that you want to do it,” he said. “Having that breadth of option packages [available] to the customer is good. And we we will continue to adjust as the market demands or the customers say, you know, as they want different packages, we’re always going to try and listen to that and see what we can do.”
Automakers can occasionally be burned by enthusiasts who cry out for options they never end up buying. Some can’t justify the inclusion of a stick even with strong customer response. But when I asked Goslawski, he said Ford has not regretted its flip-flop for a second.
“Not at all,” he said. If anything, he wishes they’d done it that way from the get-go.
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