Ford bucking Bronco tradition with Europe launch plan – will it work?

At this stage I'm quite glad that, while it is clearly utilitarian with lots of physical switches and hard-wearing floor mats, the Bronco is still well-appointed and very comfortable inside. Plus, the Bronco's four-wheel drive system and low-ratio gearbox might come in useful after all. Besides, being in wintry Dearborn gives me a chance to meet the people who have led the off-roader's revival.

They include Ed Krenz, the Bronco's chief engineer and a man who, if he weren't making Broncos, you sense would probably own one anyway. First, let's go back. You may have been wondering why, if the Bronco is such a cultural phenomenon and key part of Ford's line-up, did it disappear for 25 years? "When it went out of production in 1996 it had, in my opinion, lost its way a bit," says Krenz. "It migrated into a really big vehicle, because customers were looking for a four-door. It really lost its connection with its roots as an off-road vehicle."

However, like the Land Rover Defender, the Volkswagen bus and the Renault 5, the core concept of the Bronco never really went away, and the desire for a truly capable off-roader remained alive within the firm. Krenz says there was "a solid decade of a group of people within Ford continuing to make proposals and studio renderings" for a Bronco revival. The biggest obstacle? "There was always that hurdle of Jeep," says Krenz.

"The Wrangler was just so dominant in that market. If you're going to go into a relatively limited market that is dominated by another model, you have to have a plan to succeed." When the Bronco's revival was finally approved, Ford's engineers embraced the challenge of taking on the ubiquitous Wrangler. Krenz says: "The secret sauce was that our engineers became part of the Jeep community." That said, he insists: "We don't consider Jeep owners a separate community: it's an off-road community. We're all into this off-road thing: it's a culture that exists beyond a brand."

The aim was to really understand both the Jeep's appeal and if Ford could do it better, says Krenz: Jeep owners don't complain about their cars, because they have a high tolerance for what their product is. But we kept asking: 'How do we objectively do everything better?"

Two examples that Krenz gives are the handling "which is why we don't use a solid front axle" and the removable doors. "When Jeep owners take the doors off, they can't store them in the vehicle, so they end up chaining them to a cactus or something," says Krenz. "And because the mirrors are on the doors, when they take them off they don't have mirrors."

As a result, the Bronco's doors are designed to fit in the boot, while the mirrors are mounted on the front wings, so they stay in place when the doors come off. "It was never going to be good enough to show up with a replica and convince the market to buy something other than the Jeep they loved," says Krenz.

From behind the wheel, a Bronco offers an undeniably similar experience to that of a Wrangler, especially in my car's Badlands spec, with more ground clearance, upgraded HOSS suspension, Bilstein dampers and 33in off-road tyres. As an aside, most Bronco variants are named after US national parks and other wild locations, so Badlands sits above Big Bend and Outer Banks.

You can add a Sasquatch package with extra off-road bits to any of those or, for the most hardcore variant, opt for Raptor spec. It's all very rugged and outdoorsy.

As with a Wrangler, there's a fair degree of wobble due to the ladder-on-frame chassis and off-road tyres. Isolation and road noise are both compromised, too, and the steering lacks a bit of feel. Our Bronco is powered by a 2.7-litre twin-turbo V6 with 311bhp and 410lb ft (there's also a 2.3-litre inline four and a 3.0 V6). Driven via a 10-speed auto, it's a bit gruff and takes a while to get up to speed, but it cruises happily once there.

Still, it's eminently likeable and those on-road compromises are a price many are happy to pay for the immense off-road capability - which I don't really get to sample touring Dearborn. Still, the Bronco offers GOAT drive modes (a reference to the original 1960s development goal for a vehicle that 'goes over all terrain'), and the Slippery setting comes in helpful powering through heavy snow. It locks in four-wheel drive, offering enough traction to not just eliminate any sliding but even leave me slightly worried I'm going to rip chunks out of the road.

Krenz doesn't seem to mind me pointing out the Bronco's compromises on the road. In fact, he describes the Bronco as "unapologetically" compromised. He says: "It knows what it's designed to do, and it does that well. But in order to do some things great, there are other things it needs to do less great."

The need to do some great things, he notes, applies to every machine that carries the Bronco name. "We've written down exactly what the Bronco must do, and we replicate it on Bronco Sport or with New Energy Bronco - it's a Bronco," he says. "If the Bronco portfolio grows, we know what the recipe is and the product has to be right. Otherwise, it can't be a Bronco.