It feels good to be back in the ring.
It’s a fresh breath of air to see Mini-Mexico again, and to be able to rip around to my heart’s content.
I bet that the U725 generation Ford Bronco feels the same way.
Having come back from the dead four years ago to very warm reception,
the Bronco has sold just shy of 460,000 units. It’s not the best-selling car in its category, given that it’s lagging behind Jeep and Toyota as of last fiscal quarter, but that doesn’t matter.
Those who buy Broncos buy them because they know what they’re getting.
So when I -
a guy who chose a Daihatsu Midget over more practical cars/trucks IRL - am presented with a Bronco, I’m left feeling a little perplexed. My understanding is that the Bronco is meant to be an offroader first and a roadgoing SUV second. From my own experience IRL, most of the ones I see up here in good old Massachusetts don’t have the typical tells of being used offroad. It makes me wonder how many people buy them for that use case vs. just buying it because of the name.
For what it’s worth, the version of the Bronco in the game appears to be the two-door “Big Bend” package - which,
according to the Ford website, is (as of 2025) only available in 4-door configuration.
Bit of a special model in the game, then.
As an offroading SUV, the Bronco finds itself filtered into the PICKUPS & 4X4’S [sic] category. It’ll find itself getting matched up against things like the Hummer H1, Toyota AT38, and… weirdly enough, the absolutely tiny Jeep CJ5, which has a reputation in FH for falling over at the slightest inconvenience.
So, it’s a car that has heritage and is very clearly designed from the outset to be an offroader - with its chunky, knobbly tires, obscenely high tire aspect ratio, plastic cladding, fender flares… Yeah. It’s not just meant to be an offroader. It’s very loudly proclaiming that it is an offroader.
So what does this very loud and very American design bring to the table?
Lugging its 4,810 lb body into the spotlight is a 2.7 liter Ecoboost engine producing 310 HP almost at the very end of its rev range, and a peak torque of 410 ft-lbs at 2,300 RPM that slowly tapers off to fuel cut. This engine is mated to a 10 speed gearbox that’s reasonable until 6th, and then the spacing scatters more than glitter.
**
**(each vertical line is 800 RPM; I had to manually calculate this.)
And the game is suggesting to me that the Bronco is capable of a 0-60 sprint in 6.9 seconds, and a 0-100 sprint of 18.6 seconds, with the bucking horse ultimately running out of anger and energy at a surprisingly competent 135 MPH.
All of this is on towering 315/70R17 tyres on all four corners - but beyond that, I can’t tell you much; this game hides the factory settings completely in the Tuning menu, so I can’t really elaborate on anything.
The only logical thing to do at this point is take on the SPC and the time trials to see how the Bronco feels when asked to do more than a leisurely highway driveway. Yes, I know that’s a typo. Yes, I’m leaving it in there. It rhymes. Stop bothering me about the typo - take a deep breath. No, really, take a deep breath. Good now? Cool. Take another deep breath.
Now you’re breathing manually. You’re welcome.
Where was I? Ah, yeah.
In the rough sand on the western end of Mini-Mexico, the Bronco makes it very clear that it’s not dressed as an offroader for show - it is very much the machine it looks to be. The Bronco gets off from a cold start quite well, and the deep sand in the dunes offers very little resistance to the American brick. There’s very little resistance offered by the puddles in the latter half of the lap due to the car innately being built with fording capabilities.
The Bronco is able to carry some terrifying speeds through the first sector - hitting the third and fourth checkpoint at triple digit speeds!
The handling is neutral overall in the really rough stuff, with a trace of understeer here and there that I have to assume is baked into the factory set-up. The only thing I’d really say is that despite the power and curb weight, the Bronco seems to struggle a bit with blasting through the obstacles that are bound to be present on Cross Country events…although, I’m pretty sure any C class offroader is going to have that problem. You spend most of the time at Baja Cross on wide open throttle and in 6th/7th, so it’s not exactly representative of much beyond the Bronco’s sheer momentum and ability to pass through rough terrain at WOT.
And after trying my hardest to outpace the resident COTW alien, I had to throw in the towel. So close, but so far.
It was when I hit Desierto Trail that the flaws really started to come through. The lower pressure (relative to my area’s standards) tyres (27 PSI front / 29 PSI rear) paired with the very large sidewalls means that these tires flex quite a bit under load. While the Bronco has surprisingly good on-road handling, this is the kind of thing that leaves it very vulnerable to the sidewall becoming part of the contact patch and flipping the car over.
Lower PSI also tends to make the tires slower to respond, so this leads to another issue with the Bronco: Despite handling super well for its weight class, the Bronco cannot escape its two-ton curb weight. It is very slow to transition left and right in course with rapid back and forth corners. I feel like the PSI isn’t in the right band for the car to have a proper contact patch with the ground in the rough stuff, but it isn’t quite high enough for proper tarmac conditions… So it’s trying to be a rally car despite being twice the weight.
At least it has the brake strength to make up the difference - it stops quickly and you can effectively trailbrake with it.
Overall, it’s a pretty stable machine on and off the road, but it is still a heavy SUV at the end of the day.
Getting into the go-faster bits, the stock Bronco engine can be massaged out to 673 HP and 737 ft-lb of torque, and the car can be stripped down to a fairly modest 3,700 lbs (this number will vary depending on other parts equipped).
However, for those of you feeling a bit more rebellious or adventurous, the Bronco can be had with a RWD swap. Alternatively, you can drop the Ecoboost engine for one of five engine options:
- 6.2L V8 (415 HP)
- 5.8L V8 - DSC (662 HP)
- Racing 7.2L V8 (850 HP)
- Racing V6TT (914 HP)
- Funco V8 a.k.a. “7.4L V8TT” (1,750 HP)
That’s before considering the performance upgrades available to all but the Funco engine. And following an update made at some point in 2024, the Bronco now also has access to overland tire sizes, meaning it at least has a single option other than just setting it up for rally/cross country events - after all, the only tire compound offered by the Festival parts shop is the Offroad Race Compound.
On the bright side, the Bronco is very clear about how and where it wants to be used. And when it’s in its element, it is quite good at what it can do. I see why the Bronco is such a beloved car now.
I can only really give it a
Neutral.
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SPC:
Average speed: 82.77 MPH
Tune Share Code: 255 523 091
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