Bronco R’s Baja 1000 Run Turns Out to Be Valuable Learning Experience
Despite five months of development and in historically bad conditions, Ford’s Bronco R still put up a fight at Baja.
Depending on how you look at it, the Ford Bronco R‘s efforts at the legendary Baja 1000 off-road race could be interpreted as a success or a failure. Sure, the exciting prototype didn’t actually finish the grueling race. But there are many other factors to take into consideration. Thus, we found Trucks.com‘s breakdown of the Bronco R’s efforts to be particularly enlightening, covering all the good and the bad from this ambitious early look at what the new Bronco will be capable of.
For starters, it’s important to note that the Bronco R Prototype is, well, a brand new prototype. As Trucks.com points out, Ford just decided in June that they wanted to build a Bronco to compete at Baja, the world’s most grueling off-road race. That gave them a mere five months to essentially combine untested one-off parts with a variety of tested and untested production parts. Prior to the start of the 800.5-mile test, Ford had less than 1,000 hours of testing under its belt.
Next, we must consider the parts that failed the Bronco R. Amazingly, that didn’t include a single production part. The Ecoboost engine, transmission, transfer case, and front differential are all stock components, and not a single one faced any sort of issue. The Bronco R’s custom Fox shocks, beadlock wheels, 37-inch BFGoodrich tires, and rear differential didn’t either. Skid plate damage necessitated some repairs, as did a broken passenger-side lower control arm. Ford later discovered that the Bronco R’s low ride height likely cause these issues.
Ultimately, brutally high temperatures caused the rig to overheat around mile 580. Once cooled off, the Bronco R could have continued the race, but Ford decided to pull the plug. The next section of the race was rather remote, which would have made it very difficult to reach the Bronco if it needed support.
Adding to the complexity of this situation were the extreme conditions this year’s race presented. According to Trucks.com, many seasoned Baja racers stated they had never seen mud as bad as recent heavy rains had caused. That weather changed the entire landscape of the desert, even causing another truck to flip and pin the Bronco, robbing it of precious time.
When you look at this effort in detail, it certainly looks like a win, not a failure. Ford can now make simple adjustments to things like ride height and work on the fabricated skid plates and control arms to make them sturdier for next year. A beefier cooling system can solve the overheating issue, and just like that, they’re in business. With these few changes, the five-month-old Bronco R likely would have finished Baja. And imagine how impressive that would have been?
And that’s exactly how Ford sees it. “This wasn’t our usual development process, but it was the right process for this project,” Paul Wraith, Bronco’s chief designer, told Trucks.com “We found, created or adapted the right tool for the task at hand – a cool and exciting blend of old and new creative techniques. We stretched ourselves, but it was worth it – and great fun.”
Considering how well the Bronco R’s stock components held up at Baja this early in the development process, we can’t wait to see how the production version does off-road. And luckily, we shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out.
Photos: Ford Motor Company
