The upcoming 2021 Ford Bronco Sport may not have quite the same pre-launch buzz of its bigger Bronco brother, but it’s still a cool off-road-focused, compact SUV. “Off-road” being a relative term, of course. While the Bronco Sport will surely have more chops for traveling off the beaten path than its Escape stablemate, its unibody, front-wheel-drive-derived architecture remains a less than ideal tool for true rockhoppers.
Fortunately, thanks to a leaked vehicle-identification number (VIN) decoder published to Bronco Sport Talk, we now know a little more about the Blue Oval’s new pint-sized crossover SUV, which is due to arrive before the end of the year. What’s a VIN decoder, you ask? It outlines what each letter and number in the forthcoming model’s 17-digit VIN references, meaning it is a veritable roadmap to the Bronco Sport’s broad-strokes body and engine configurations, as well as where it’ll be assembled (Mexico!).
As expected, the Bronco Sport appears to share its two powertrain options with the Escape crossover SUV. That means the standard engine should be a 180-hp turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder, and the optional engine will be a 250-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four. We know, the horsepower figures for either engine aren’t listed in the leaked VIN decoder, but we expect these two engines to offer identical power to their Escape counterparts.
The decoder also seems to imply all Bronco Sport variants will include a standard all-wheel-drive system. If true, expect any front-wheel-drive variants of the little crossover to arrive for the 2022 model year—if at all. Standard AWD could be one way for Ford to distinguish the Bronco Sport in its segment, as well as from the Escape it’s based on while also bolstering its “rugged” cred. We also can confirm the Bronco Sport’s trim levels: Base, Big Bend, Outer Banks, Badlands, and First Edition. The latter will surely be a limited-edition first-year-only trim (how’d we guess?!).
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Still, there are many stones left for us to unturn in the world of the Bronco Sport. At least now, we know a little more about Ford’s latest small crossover SUV. It might be the last we hear of it for a while—both the Bronco Sport and larger Bronco were initially set to debut, well, now—but both reveals have been delayed by the ongoing health crisis.
