Oh no! The great-looking Ford Bronco will come in range-topping Raptor guise too.

As if it wasn’t disappointing enough that Ford declined to bring its Ford Ranger-underpinned Bronco to Australia, we now know that there will also be Bronco Raptor.

The flagship of the new Ranger and also the F-150 in North America, Raptor is Ford code for extreme off-roading performance model, enabling the Ranger here to venture further than just about any rival available on the showroom floor.

In the Ranger’s instance, it gets a unique watts-link rear-end with long-travel Fox Shocks suspension all-round – among many other changes – that are very unique to the model. And so given the Ranger’s T6 platform underpins the new Bronco, we already wondered if there’d be a Bronco Raptor – and there will be.

Perhaps remiss on the company’s classified information protocols, a Ford EDS engineer reposnsible for the electrical distribution system on the Bronco listed publically on his Linkedin account that he was leading two Bronco projects: the 2021 Bronco we’ve already seen, but also the 2023 Bronco Raptor. Oops.

The news was first leaked on the Bronco6G.com forum.

It’s exciting news, and really exciting for North Americans where the models will be sold. But it’s a kick in the guts for the many Aussies who have voiced a desire for the normal Bronco model. And knowing how popular the Ranger Raptor is here, we reckon there’ll be even more disappointment knowing that what should be an incredibly capable off-roading wagon won’t be offered here.

On the cards (given there are no further official details available) will be a likely V6 petrol engine and similar Fox Suspension underneath the front and rear. Like the Ranger and F-150, we expect a Baja mode that lets the thing get a little loose on the right tracks.

In the last few weeks since Ford unveiled the Bronco, we’ve had many readers asking if we’re sure Ford Australia won’t offer it here. We even had one suggest a dealer was taking pre-orders (which we confirmed was not the case).

We’ve asked the official lines of contact at Ford and a few sources, and we’ve been given bullets in terms of any suggestion that it will arrive here. For now, we know that the project doesn’t have a business case that stacks up, but we sure hope that changes, just as many of you do.

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