2025 Ford Bronco Sport Proves Sasquatch Fits on Smaller SUV

August 30, 2024

Sebastian Blanco

It’s been four years since the Bronco Sport launched and the “baby” Bronco has been finding its place in Ford’s line-up since 2020. For the 2025 model year, Ford is adding the off-road Sasquatch package to the Badlands and Outer Banks trims, bringing what it sees as the strengths of the larger Bronco to the smaller SUV.

Ford’s mission was to close the capability gap between Bronco and Bronco Sport, and that meant bringing better off-road chops to more customers. The new Sasquatch package will be available on both 2-L and 1.5-L Bronco Sports (Badlands and Outer Banks trims), offering off-road capabilities to more Bronco Sport buyers.

Adding a Sasquatch package to a new Bronco Sport means getting a twin-clutch rear-drive unit and locking rear differential that was previously reserved for the higher-trim Badlands version. A more functional, lower-cost Black Diamond package, which does not include the powertrain upgrades but does have the additional underbody protection and recovery points, will also be available.

“Bronco is all about getting out off-road; it’s about making that easier for customers to do,” said Mike Weller, Bronco Sport brand manager. “It’s also designed to withstand and endure that terrain. Bronco is about being used and abused. It doesn’t just sit in your garage. You get out into the wild with it.”

The 2025 Bronco Sport looks the part. “The design brief for this car was pretty straightforward,” Bronco Sport designer Dan Kangan said. “Number one, it was to take Bronco Sport and make it even more of a Bronco.”

The new Bronco Sport will have an upgraded, 850-Watt cooling fan and improved driveline cooling. All 2025 Bronco Sports also get upgraded grille and wheel designs, new front and rear fascias and new foldaway tie-down hooks, each rated to 150 pounds to better secure things to the vehicle’s roof. Kangan said these hooks, like the optional four tow hooks and the various “Bronco Bolt” accessory spots, are made of metal for increased strength.

“You see something that looks like metal on Bronco, it’s legit,” Kangan said. “There’s no faux in Bronco.”

First test? Pass.

SAE Media was able to test an early engineering build of the new Bronco Sport Badlands Sasquatch recently as Ford invited journalists to Maryville, Tennessee, to the location of the soon-to-be-fifth Bronco Off-Roadeo location.

Inside, the 2025 Bronco Sport features minor upgrades that will feel major to those who want to test out the updated vehicle’s improved off-road performance. Depending on trim, there are new grab handles for the passenger (including an integrated center console grab handle), chunky accessory switches on the ceiling, and, just like on the exterior, the Bronco Bolts can be used to hold a GoPro camera.

All 2025 Bronco Sport versions include a 13.2-inch (34 cm) touchscreen with the SYNC 4 in the center and a 12.3-inch (31-cm) instrument display. Ford’s Co-Pilot 360 Assist+ safety package is also standard. Finding the controls I wanted for the short test drive – Off-Road (Goes Over Any Type of Terrain) G.O.A.T. mode – was as easy as spinning a dial, and it didn’t take long to feel like I was going too fast for the trail we were on. The Bronco Sport Sasquatch easily handled the (admittedly only minorly challenging) route between the trees and through the mud.

There wasn’t space or time to enjoy the Rally G.O.A.T. mode, since that is intended more for higher speeds in sand (and it works by holding gears longer for increased power on demand while also sharpening the throttle response, Ford said), but the Bronco Sport’s one-pedal off-road technology made coming down hills a simple task. Like cruise control for the trail, one-pedal off-road mode is an excellent confidence builder.

The optional 29-inch (74 cm) 235/65/R17 Territory All-Terrain tires were designed specifically for the 2025 Bronco Sport, in a new size that Goodyear did not offer before. The sidewall and the tread pattern echo the design of the full-size Bronco Goodyears, enhancing the feel of Sasquatch capability.

The 2025 Bronco Sport uses a lightly shrunken version of the Bilstein shock absorbers with position-sensitive End Stop Control Valves (ESCV) found on the larger Bronco.

“It’s the same piggyback reservoir, the same ESCV valve,” Seth Goslawski, off-road and trailer tow attribute supervisor for the Bronco Sport, told SAE Media. “It’s a slightly smaller diameter to package it in there. It’s the same technology in the Bronco, just Bronco-Sport sized.”

Off-road standar

Goslawski said the engineering team wanted to lean into the Bronco Sport’s higher-speed off-road capabilities. This was difficult to calculate, he said, because there’s no SAE rating for this particular concept.

“It’s so terrain- and driver-dependent,” he said. “It’s not like we increase the top speed of the vehicle, but we have our internal metrics of off-road capability. SAE has J2807 for trailer towing and it’s real easy because you’ve got to do it at Davis Dam when it’s 95 F (35 C) out, and you can’t go below 42 mph (68 km/h), and the trailer is this big. All those inputs are very well defined for J2807. I always joke, we need a J2808 for off-road, because it’s whatever you want it to be, right?”

Instead of engineering to meet a specification, Goslawski said Ford’s mission was to reduce the hassle of “technical stuff that you have to slow down for. How quickly can you attack that? And it’s all about travel, and it’s all about the energy control when you get into those situations.”

One of the main reasons for the additional capability are the position-sensitive dampers (PSD) in the rear, which work with a Tenneco front shock. “Given the McPherson front strut, you can’t really do a piggyback reservoir up there,” Goslawski. “You just don’t have the package space. We do have a two-piece jounce bumper up there. You can’t just add technology on one axle and not affect another, especially off road.”

Two first-for-Ford technologies that can be found in the 2025 Bronco Sport are the new two-piece jounce bumper for the front suspension, made with rubber and plastic, and using a PSD in this segment, Goslawski said.

The 2025 Bronco Sport isn’t just a collection of minor improvements for a new model year. For the Sasquatch packages, Ford made sure to upgrade enough parts to make the SUV more off-road capable.

“If you truly want a comprehensive package, you can’t just throw tires at a product,” Goslawski said. “You can’t just throw skid plates at a product. You can’t just throw cooling. They all work together to bring up the capability level. If I just threw suspension at it and didn’t touch the cooling package, then you’re gonna overheat it faster because you can drive it faster and attack corners more aggressively. And throwing a cooling package at it would be wasting money if you can’t drive it any faster. It kind of all molds together.”

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