Some folks see the new 2024 Ford Bronco Sport “Free Wheeling” SUV and comment with scorn. Others see it, look it over, and say they like it because it’s different.

But nobody sees the flashy, multi-striped compact SUV and registers no opinion.

Maybe that’s the perfect conclusion to reach in this election year, when we’re all inundated with polls and ratings and projections in our divided society.

The Bronco and the Maverick cam out a couple years ago, as Ford Motor Company made the bold decision to swing its emphasis from cars — where it has made its living for a century — to trucks, which have always been a huge part of Ford’s success, and, more recently, to SUVs.

That’s where the resurrection of the Bronco nickname struck gold for Ford. The original Bronco was Ford’s first venture into building a tough, off-road vehicle that would take a beating and keep on functioning, taking a beating as it goes anywhere and hauls everything from family members to all sorts of luggage and adventure devices. 

But the original Bronco went away after being overrun by all the Explorers, Edges, Expeditions, Excursions and the subcompact Escape.

Into that tangle comes the new Bronco, which bears a slight resemblance to the squarish original, but it loaded up with all the modern features that have elevated our current car business to the pinnacle of development. 

It sold out, so Ford built more, angering many dealers who had solid offers but couldn’t get enough vehicles to fill them all.

Ford went after the market, not only building more, but adding new special-edition Broncos, such as the Sport, and selling out of those back-ordered specialty versions. 

Ford even built a Raptor version, loading up a Bronco with a hot engine and serious off-road equipment.
 think I’ve kept up pretty well, evaluating and reporting on virtually every model Ford has developed and provided to the factory press fleets.

With all of that, and a pretty thorough acceptance at moderate prices, I still was not fully prepared when the Chicago press fleet guys showed up in my driveway with a shiny black Bronco, and the shiny “Shadow Black” paint job would have glowed even more if it hadn’t been for being almost half-covered by a shocking and somewhat bizarre arrangement of stripes.

Not just stripes, as in a racing stripe or two, either, but rows of stripes that include red, red-orange, brighter orange, yellow orange, and finally a bright yellow that is practically iridescent on its own. These stripes run from the front wheel wells all the way back on either side, almost to the rear corner. They also run over the top, covering nearly the whole hood, and complete with a tiny bucking Bronco on the leading edge.

Special painted alloy wheels in bright red-orange also set apart the 225/55 R17 heavy duty tires on all four corners. 

The same multi-hued accent paints continue inside the Bronco Free Wheeling model, which, on its own, boosts the sticker price from $33,730 to an as-tested price of $37,695.

The test vehicle not only attracted attention wherever we drove for a solid week, but it got there quickly and with great agility on normal highways and roadways. 

We didn’t get much chance to venture off-road, but I have no doubt it will clamber up hills and on rock-climbing ventures.

The powertrain is also worth more than a mere mention. It came equipped with Ford’s innovative 1.5-liter, 3-cylinder engine, turbocharged to make the Bronco Sport feel overqualified to accept any driving challenge.

And that includes passing gas stations, too. People unaware, might be used to V8, V6 or 4-cylinder engines, some of which have to be built to attain balance. A 3-cylinder engine, however, is balanced as it comes, free of the vibrations that occur at specific RPM levels.

With plenty of power on its own, turbocharging the 3-cylinder brings the tiny 1.5-liter up to more expected power standards, and qualify as one of Ford’s “EcoBoost” engine family.

It also has an 8-speed automatic transmission that shifts smoothly and without jerking, although I was mightily disappointed when I found that the Bronco Free Wheeling does not come with steering wheel paddles for manual overriding of shifts. 

Some manufacturers see those as gimmicks, others claim people don’t use them, but if you lived on the cliffs of Duluth, you’d appreciate greatly being able to downshift with the left paddle and let the engine help brake the descending Bronco.

The lack of paddles makes less sense when you enjoy the mode switch on the console, which lets you go from Eco to Normal to Sport and to Slippery/Sand for foul-weather driving.

But the Bronco 1.3 did a fantastic job on fuel economy. The EPA estimates were 25 city and 29 highway, and we got a visible 28.1 miles per gallon reading on mostly city driving.

As our week went on, a curious thing happened to us. My wife, Joan, and I agreed that we might consider wearing bags over our heads to prevent neighbors from seeing who was driving this bizarre Bronco. 
But on the last day we had it, Joan said, “You know, this thing has really grown on me, and I’m going to be sorry to see it go.”

I realized, without discussing it, that I agreed and was actually looking forward to even chance to climb behind the wheel and drive the Bronco Free Wheeling.