The 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch Is an Adorable Homage to Off-Roading
The 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch is here to give Ford’s compact crossover some off-road cred. In the metal, it has some cute and cartoonish energy, which in itself is a fun feature way too rare in modern cars. Its off-road equipment is decent, and its modularity should make it easy to customize. I’m a little skeptical of its reliability, especially if you drive it like you’re in a commercial, but it could be an entertaining car to play with in the right conditions.
From a styling and branding perspective, it’s spectacular. Ford’s artists did a great job making a relatively small vehicle look fun, friendly, and a little bit fierce. It’s an awesome emblem-engineering exercise, too—the Bronco name has a lot of cache and the Blue Oval is milking it here with little horse accents and truck-looking trim pieces inside and out.
Unfortunately, Consumer Reports rates Bronco Sport’s reliability quite poorly and Ford has had a rough time with recalls recently. The new Sasquatch armoring options will help protect the Bronco Sport from the outside world, but whether or not it will get you home really depends on how well the powertrain, fuel system, and brakes were assembled.
The Basics
The Ford Bronco Sport came out in 2020, in some ways replacing the Escape which had long since pivoted from truck-like styling to more of a sporty car look. Size-wise, it’s about the smallest vehicle you’d realistically want to put four people plus adventure gear in. This 2025 model is a mid-cycle update rather than a complete redesign, notably adding the Sasquatch off-road package for higher trim levels. Sasquatch is available on several Bronco, and now Bronco Sport, models that give the vehicle more traction in rough terrain and armoring against the elements.
On the 2025 Bronco Sport, you get thick skid plates, steel front and rear bash plates, four huge and easy-to-access recovery points, 29-inch all-terrain tires, a rear locker, and small suspension adjustments. Taller springs give the ‘squatch four-tenths of an inch of height over the standard Bronco Sport Badlands. The Badlands Sasquatch claims 8.3 inches of front suspension travel and 8.7 inches of rear suspension travel (six-tenths of an inch of additional travel than vanilla Badlands). Sasquatches also get Bilstein rear shocks with little piggyback reservoirs which should allow you to run over rough terrain longer without overheating.
The Badlands also gets rock-crawl and mud/ruts modes toggleable through Ford’s G.O.A.T. (Goes Over Any Type of Terrain) drive mode selector, which adjusts pedal response and activates cameras to improve obstacle-avoiding visibility. There’s a new rally mode designed to hold gears longer for powering over gravel. The SUV also has an off-road cruise control function and a one-pedal driving mode.
Finally, there’s a bank of auxiliary switches pre-wired, making it easy to install lights and other electrical accessories while maintaining a clean interior look. Ford’s done this with Raptors for some time now, and it’s great.
The Lineup
The 2025 Bronco Sport will be available in five trim levels—Big Bend, Outer Banks, Badlands, Heritage, and Free Wheeling—with two engine options. The standard motor is a 1.5-liter EcoBoost turbo three-cylinder targeting 180 horsepower and 200 lb-ft of torque. The Badlands models get a 2.0-liter EcoBoost turbo-four that should be around 238 hp and 277 lb-ft. Ford recommends premium fuel for that one. There’s a smidge of variance on hp because some 2025 models may have slightly different outputs due to state-specific emissions equipment. All Bronco Sports have eight-speed automatics and all-wheel drive. You can get the Sasquatch pack on a 1.5-liter Outer Banks or a 2.0-liter Badlands model.
One small asterisk about those engines that some may be interested in: Ford “will add a new gas particulate filter to meet emissions compliance in states following California regulations, which reduces the maximum horsepower that [Ford] can deliver. Bronco Sport 2.0-liter’s official horsepower figure is 238 hp for 2025, although 2.0-liter EcoBoost engines not equipped with gas particulate filter are expected to maintain existing performance levels. Power output isn’t final for the 1.5-liter EcoBoost yet, but we’re targeting 180 horsepower with the GPF.”
to note about those engines, is that they are carryovers
The underpinnings and propulsion are carried over from Bronco Sports that are already on the road. The only real visual changes you’ll notice, besides the optional Sasquatch pack’s knobby tires, are large displays (13.2-inch touchscreen with Sync 4, 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster) inside and the steel bumper bits with easily removable mounting points.
Pricing is still TBA, but I would expect a modest hike from the current Bronco Sport’s range of $30,000 to $40,000. The Sasquatch pack adds a lot of cost to the full-size Bronco; $5,000 and another $1,000 if you get beadlock wheels. It definitely won’t be that much for Bronco Sport, but I doubt it will be much less than $3,000. Ford won’t announce pricing until later in the year, but if you want a 2.0-liter, I expect it’ll be in the $45,000 neighborhood with the 1.5-liter ‘squatch closer to $40,000.
Driving the Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch (Briefly)
Ford’s people say it has had a lot of success with its Off-Roadeo events in getting people excited about the brand and using their SUVs off-pavement. The Blue Oval hosts Bronco buyers at off-road courses all over the country; the newest one is currently under construction outside Knoxville, Tennessee. I got the chance to take a little lap there through some ruts, mud, rocks, and dirt lumps to get a little sample of the 2.0-liter Badlands Bronco Sport Sasquatch.
Visibility and Posture
This was my first time in any Bronco Sport, so the generally good visibility and seating position I noticed will already be familiar to the many thousands of people who have bought one of these. It’s easy to climb into and see out of.
The 360-camera is, of course, helpful but not entirely necessary. You can appreciate the cool-looking chunky bulges on the hood from the driver’s seat and see your surroundings pretty well, too.
I really liked the driver’s seat and its orientation. I didn’t really have much to complain about ergonomically, either. While many things are touchscreen-controlled, the hard keys that do exist are easy to access, intuitive, and even elegant looking—at least, when it comes to design … materials are a little less luxe.
Ride
While old-school off-road vehicles usually feel quite soft and squishy, the Bronco Sport Sasquatch I drove was surprisingly stiff. The driving instructor Ford had keeping tabs on me kept encouraging a little more speed, but I wasn’t super comfortable charging over the rutted terrain. It felt fine at my obstacle-crawling pace and will be better for daily driving, though.
Trail Control Mode
A lot of automakers used to advertise hill-descent control, which would effectively manage a combination of braking and engine speed to crawl down hills. Now those systems, including Ford’s, have evolved for use in flat and uphill situations, too. In a practical sense, it feels just like cruise control but for low-speed action. However, I still think steep descents are the only situation in which it really benefits a mildly skilled driver.
One thing I noticed was that Ford’s system really rushes to match the pace you pick, which is a little jarring. For example, I was using Trail Control down a hill at 3 mph, set it to 7 mph, and instead of walking me up to that speed, the Bronco Sport just let me glide, giving a kind of “took a leap” feeling and briefly exceeding my new selected speed.
One-Pedal Driving
A new evolution of this off-road driver assistance tech is a one-pedal driving mode. It’s not an EV and, normally, the car will inch forward if it’s idling in drive. But the Bronco Sport’s one-pedal drive mode basically uses the brake like a hill-hold mode to slow the car in sync with how quickly you lift off the gas pedal. As you lift, the brakes come on, to create the effect of a 1-to-1 relationship between the throttle and forward motion. Releasing the pedal all the way completely stops the car; you don’t need to touch the brake at all.
This could be helpful for less-experienced drivers to get themselves unstuck from mud, snow, or slippery rocks. In an old car without any kind of locking diff, you can kind of drag a brake while you hit the gas to create a poor man’s torque-vectoring situation—the extra drag helps coax some traction away from the slipping wheels to ones that might have grip. This one-pedal mode basically taps into the same principle but makes it easier.
Vibe Impressions
The Bronco Sport is a nice-looking vehicle in photographs. The basic shapes are good and Ford’s design team clearly wanted to give the thing as much novelty as they could, which I appreciate. Up close it whithers a little bit—in person, it looks more like a toy version of a cool truck rather than an original work. Sadly, that’s the case with a lot of things in 2024 and I’m not totally put off by it at this price point.
Design
While “Bronco Sport” text only appears on the tailgate, “Bronco” and little horseys are sprinkled all over this thing. The overall shape of the Bronco Sport, inside and out, is pretty good. And even though the rear seat area is snug, it’s reasonably comfortable.
Novelty factors are pretty abundant inside. There are military-style MOLLE straps on the back of the front seat, little zipper-closed pouches, and pockets everywhere—the whole interior’s like a pair of 5.11 pants. Color choices are also pretty interesting. Inside, you get some big swaths of black plastic but there are also rich browns. One interior even has grey inserts and highlighter yellow stitching. Looks very ’90s in a fun and good way. Outside, there’s a brilliant red, a spectacular blue, and deliciously deep green. Please, make your Ford store get one for you! Don’t leave the lot in dark grey!
Human-Machine Interface
I don’t like screens and digital displays in general but the Bronco Sport’s are very good. Its main infotainment screen is large but not intrusive or egregiously distracting like some trucks I’ve been in recently *cough* TACOMA *cough*. The steering wheel’s nice, as is the center console. The paddle shifters are terrible—stupid little fingernail-sized bits of plastic that are not particularly responsive. I tried to use them during my short test drive and the car just did its own thing with gear changes anyhow.
There’s a small bank of buttons below the screen in the center console that are very tidy-looking and neat. In the back, there are more straps and buckles and even an optional removable table which would be a sweet little camp toy.
Broadly speaking, I found the Bronco Sport’s layout and accessibility to be very good.
The Very Early Verdict
After about 15 minutes of driving and a couple of hours crawling around in the 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch, I realized it did hit some nostalgia buttons for me. But not for the classic Ford Broncos of the 1990s. It reminds me of a cross between a 20-year-old Land Rover and a 10-year-old Hyundai. I guess another way to say that could be: It feels like an old Freelander. I can feel Ford’s reps cringing at that one, but it’s not meant to be categorically damning. It’s just that … this is an economy car trying really hard to impersonate an old-school 4×4. It mostly works. If you’ve driven the real deal though, being surrounded by mere nods to older (cooler) trucks is kind of bittersweet. That’s more of a 2024 problem than a Bronco Sport problem, but we can tackle that in another blog.
The Sasquatch hardware is legit—the skid plates have confidence-inspiring heft to them, steel elements in the front and rear bumpers would take a beating, and the recovery loops would make extraction from deep trouble pretty painless. But this model’s record of reliability would definitely give me pause about driving one outside AAA’s service area. And really, the tires are doing all the heavy lifting in terms of off-road capability.
I did ask Ford’s comms people for a comment about the Bronco Sport’s reliability record, and here’s the company’s reply:
“Regarding quality, it remains top of mind at Ford. Earlier this year, Ford jumped 14 spots in JD Power’s Initial Quality Study (ahead of Honda and Toyota) and the Bronco Sport had the highest initial quality in the Small SUV segment. We also put Bronco Sport through 600,000 customer-equivalent miles of durability testing to make sure customers have the quality experience they expect.”
Let us know what you think about that in the comments, especially if you’ve been driving a Bronco Sport yourself.
Long-term survival aside, this little SUV does have some tricks. Sasquatch’s cameras and control-assistance and underbody armor would definitely make life easier for somebody without much off-road experience, or anybody in a truly far-from-home situation. It’s not an absolute necessity for getting into this hobby, though—with the traction of tall, true all-terrain tires, a decent driver could follow this anywhere.
| 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch Specs | Outer Banks | Badlands |
|---|---|---|
| Base Price | TBA | TBA |
| Powertrain | 1.5-liter turbo three-cylinder | 8-speed automatic | all-wheel drive | 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder | 8-speed automatic | all-wheel drive |
| Horsepower | 180 | 238 |
| Torque | 200 lb-ft | 277 lb-ft |
| Seating Capacity | 5 | 5 |
| Cargo Volume | 32.5 cubic feet behind second row | 65.2 cubic feet behind first row | 29.4 cubic feet behind second row | 60.6 cubic feet behind first row |
| Curb Weight | 3,729 pounds | 3,849 pounds |
| Ground Clearance | 8.8 inches | 8.7 inches |
| Off-Road Angles | 24.1° approach | 21° breakover | 27.3° departure | 31.2° approach | 21.7° breakover | 27.9° departure |
| Water Fording | 20.6 inches | 23.6 inches |
| EPA Fuel Economy | TBD | TBD |
| Quick Take | It’s like a Land Rover Freelander for people who are nostalgic for old-school Americana. | |
| Score | 6.5/10 |
Got tips? Send ’em to [email protected]
Source: www.thedrive.com
