Ford starts shipping new Bronco SUVs for consumers

Ford starts shipping new Bronco SUVs for consumers

June 16, 2021: -Ford Bronco SUVs are rolling off a Michigan assembly line and shipping to dealers for the first time in a quarter-century, marking a new beginning for what’s expected to be a hugely profitable product for the automaker.

Ford Motor begin shipping Bronco SUVs from the Michigan Assembly plant of the company on Monday. Inside the plant, two- and four-door versions of the Bronco in all sorts of colors were being produced at the facility near Detroit.

The Bronco is seen as one of the most critical nonelectric product launches in years for the company. It is expected to be the flagship model for a new Bronco family of vehicles.

“To see it is rolling down the line here, it’s amazing,” Bronco marketing manager Mark Grueber said on Monday in a tour of the plant. “It’s almost 25 years to the day that the last Bronco rolled down the line here. It was June 12, 1996.”

The resurrection of the Bronco, produced by Ford initially from 1965-1996, has been years in the making, which include a coronavirus-related delay earlier this year. The company originally announced plans in January the year 2017 to bring back the Bronco name.

Grueber said the plant is “trying to ramp-up production faster to satisfy the huge demand.”

Michigan Assembly is currently running on three shifts with 3,000 employees, which include 2,800 hourly United Auto Workers members. Union leaders for the plant are optimistic the vehicle will be a super hit, pushing Ford to add a third shift to the facility, producing the midsize Ranger pickup.

“For us to get an iconic brand such as the Bronco, accompanied with the Ranger, we know the profits the company is going to make off this vehicle, which is not same compared to what we’ve ever been used to,” said Scott Elliott, UAW Local 900 chairman of the assembly plant.

Before the Ranger and Bronco, Michigan Assembly produced the Ford Focus compact car. Ford ends that production of the Focus as part of a restructuring plan to concentrate on pickups and SUVs in the year 2018.

“We’re just extremely excited to be here and get the Broncos out to the customers,” Rich Shafer, plant manager of Michigan Assembly, said.

The SUV isn’t the first vehicle with the Bronco name to recently arrive in U.S. showrooms. It joins the Bronco Sport, which Ford launched at the last year’s end as a smaller, less-expensive vehicle than the off-road, open-air Bronco SUV.

The pricing for the Ford Bronco starting from about $30,000 to $60,000, which includes destination charges. The Bronco Sport ranges from nearly $28,000 to $40,000.

About Us

We provide the insights on leaders who are responsible for taking their organization to new heights, all the while bringing together a group of talented individuals.

Recent Posts

Noodle.ai | Make Profit Not Waste | Stephen Pratt

Supply chain leaders, including VPs, often find themselves making bets with unknown financial consequences. Having started with largely infeasible plans generated by deterministic “one-number” planning systems, compounded by unexpected supply or demand disruptions, they are forced into last-minute adjustments to meet operational and financial goals.

Intelichain | Revolutionary Supply Chain Planning Solutions | Roei Aviram

Unsurprisingly, today’s supply chain faces numerous issues, including sustainability, technology, global economic and political instability, talent management, and supply chain resilience. Advanced forecasting algorithms and predictive analytics are used in supply chain management to help organizations of all sizes make better decisions by providing insights into what’s going on in their business at any given moment and predicting future trends.

GAINS | Empowering Companies to Make the Right Decision | Bill Benton

Ensuring the right products are in the right place and at the right time is critical for companies also dealing with supply chain constraints and a high degree of variability. Uncertainty has become the name of the game and the only way to effectively optimize inventory through continuous, data-driven assessments, planning, and decision-making.

Extensiv | Creating the Future of Omnichannel Fulfillment | Sheridan Richey

Food Huggers, a consumer brand that designs products to reduce waste at home, may be in an enviable position now but before they found Extensiv Order Manager, managing booming orders and staying on top of inventory was a huge operational challenge. The business has inventory spread across multiple geographically distributed warehouses, with orders received via multiple sales channels, including Shopify storefronts and Amazon.