Ford Bronco vs. Bronco Sport Sasquatch: Can the Baby Bronco Keep Up Off-Road?

Our Bronco Sasquatch has been out for a number of years now, and it's become kind of legendary in the off-road community. But now there's a new Sasquatch. That's right. For 2025, we've got the Bronco Sport Sasquatch, the most off-road capable crossover maybe ever made. Obviously, the Bronco Sport Sasquatch is not going to be as capable as the full size, but we're testing both of these here at Cliffhanger 1.0 in the mountains of Colorado Case, this particular Sasquatch Bronco is an Everglades Bronco, and kind of talk me through what that means. Well, it means that we've got a few goodies, including a winch up here at the front bumper. We have a snorkel, but most importantly, 35 inch tires. We've got front and rear lockers, but because this isn't a Badlands, we don't have the disconnecting front sway bar. And thinking of tires, this is a Goodyear Territory MT. It measures 315 70 R17, and it's just below a 35 inch tall tire. In case it's mounted on these super cool wheels. Absolutely. A really cool set of gray 17 inch wheels, actually the same size wheel that's on the Bronco Sport Sasquatch. And we've got quite a bit of underbody protection, including this rocker protection, which is nice on most trails. We probably won't be running into it today, though. If we run into it today, there's no hope for that little Bronco Sport. But basically what a Sasquatch gives you across any full size Bronco are tires. It gets you the front and rear locking differential. It gets you some suspension tweaks. It gets you the larger fender flares. It basically just means you're ready to tackle just about anything straight out of the box. Cliffhanger 1.0 is going to be a great test to demonstrate the difference between these two Broncos in terms of four wheel drive capability, suspension design, and of course, traction. Now we've got this really steep, loose hill. We're going up the dare side, the hard side. And then we've got these trenches that have been dug into the hill, which will get the vehicles way off kilter. And we're going to start both vehicles in the normal goat mode, which is just your standard drive everyday mode. So we can see what happens when we change the goat mode, which stands for it goes over any terrain. So this is the full size Bronco four high normal goat mode. And now we're going to enter our first divot here. We're going to start picking up some wheels. But with that solid rear axle, we have pretty good articulation in the rear end of this thing. Nice and slow. Now we're fully off kilter, really building up some boost on that turbocharged 2.3 liter four cylinder. Really picking up the tire. Come on, come on, come on big Bronco. And a little bit of power. We were able to kind of muscle our way up that. So look, we got those wheels spinning. Took some time for the traction control to figure out what the heck do I want to do in this situation? And then once it did, it clamped down on the brakes, sent the torque where it needed to go, and we were able to crawl up that. So now we're going to put the full size Bronco into the rock crawl mode. I'm going to turn this knob all the way to the right. It's going to say rock crawl. And then it's going to ask me to go into neutral so it can shift the transfer case in a low range. This people is the primary difference in my mind between the full size and the Bronco sport. What it does is it multiplies your available torque to the wheel and gives you a lot more control. You're also not building nearly as much heat in that transmission, that torque converter, and allows you to crawl up things where with a typical high range vehicle only vehicle, you'd really have to muscle up. So we've gone in a low range here, rock crawl mode. That's gone ahead and locked up that mechanical rear differential. And I'm going to try to take a very similar line as to what I did in normal mode. You can see we're able to just crawl up this. Before that engine was straining, we had turbo pressure building. It was a lot of drama. But in low range, look at all the control is the word of the day that I have now. We're picking up the same wheels. But with that rear diff locked, I'm able to just crawl it. And if I needed to, if I wanted even more forward, I could lock up that front differential as well. And then you got all four wheels spinning at exactly the same speed. But you could see the difference in the drama and the difference in my heart rate, if you could experience it was a lot lower in rock crawl mode with the low range in the rear locker engaged. So very, very cool. But let's see what that Bronco Sport can do in rock crawl mode. Unlike our full size Bronco, this Bronco Sport is both a Badlands and it has a Sasquatch package. Like we said, it's still not going to be as capable of that, of course. But the Sasquatch package here on the Bronco Sport does get you a lot of similar goodies to what you get on the full size Bronco. We've got a lifted, more off-road oriented suspension, eight point seven inches of ground clearance here. Goodyear Territory RT tire wrapped around a 17 inch wheel that measures around 29 inches. Now, guys, I think the cool part about the Bronco Sasquatch is the stuff you really can't see. So in the front, we've got this steel insert on the bumper, which Ford says is the same thickness as the front bumper on the full size Bronco. And then underneath, it's got some special stuff going on as well. It's true. A decent amount of underbody protection. We've also got that modular style steel bumper in the rear with some recovery points, which is a great thing to have. Also, this guard here at the front of the bumper, if you don't like it, it is four bolts. You can pull it off. But depending on how you feel about the way it looks, you might leave it on. And there's a few extra little goodies. I kind of like this tie down point. If you do decide to use your roof rack, then you could actually use this as a point to strap to. And inside, we've got a few nice features as well. Locking rear diff, which makes a big difference. Goat modes, a front camera system, quite a bit of technology. Now, of course, this is a unibody vehicle. It's a transverse engine front wheel drive biased all wheel drive system. But it does have one thing the full size doesn't have. And you touched on it briefly at the very back. It has dual recovery points. It's true where the full size only has one. Tommy, what were they thinking? I know, dude. Look how wimpy this looks compared to your beautiful silver one. Like Tommy, I'm going to start up the trail, attempting normal mode. So this is nothing special engaged. This is just how you would drive this Bronco sport around day to day. And of course, most people that are going to go hit a trail are going to use the off road modes that Ford provides you. But we want to see what kind of difference those modes make. So right now, just normal mode. Traction control is kicking in to try and help me up the hill. But in normal mode, you're not going to get very far without using momentum. And using momentum is not really what we're trying to do. So I've now gone on to rock crawl mode and my rear differential is locked. That alone makes a pretty massive difference. And I'm going to try to crawl this reasonably slowly again to make it as challenging as I can on purpose. You'll notice not tons of articulation here in the Bronco sport. But even as we start to pick up tires, there's enough traction in this machine it's able to continue progressing up the trail. And we've got a small diameter tire. We don't have tons and tons. We don't have endless clearance, but for but for a soft rotor, this is really not bad. We're always impressed with the kinds of things you can do in a Bronco sport. It's a bit of a surprise because compared to a lot of other crossovers that this would compete against, this goes above and beyond. So hopefully you could really see the four wheel drive or all wheel drive difference between the Bronco and the Bronco sport. And of course, how that suspension kind of articulated going up cliffhanger. But we got some more stuff to do to test out some other aspects of these vehicles. Now, starting off with this kind of cross trench course here in the full size Bronco, I'm in low range, but I got the rear lock off. We're able to kind of just muscle our way up that. And then we've got this nice size route over here that we should just be able to climb on up at the right front. This Bronco feels so athletic out here. It's just a purpose built machine for Colorado trails. Other than it being a little bit too wide in some instances, where this thing will go is pretty amazing. All right. I'm going to have Tommy spot me a little bit through this because even the Bronco gets a little articulated here. And I've seen vehicles pitch up pretty nose high going up this obstacle. Once again, there's plenty of limitations to our angles, to our articulation and everything. But I'm in rock crawl once again. So we still got good traction. And it's true what Tommy said. I don't have a low range, but first gear is low enough in this. And there's enough power from our two liter 238 horsepower, 277 pound feet of torque that we can make our way up obstacles, even though we don't have the same kind of gearing that you get in a full size Bronco. And if you take your time going down the trail, you can pick lines, take things slow enough because of the locker and the traction and the capability here. You can take things slow enough that you shouldn't slam down too hard onto the rocks. You can have a calculated approach. Case is eruption green, just the best Bronco color. Apparently the best Ford color, because we also have an eruption green maverick. We have so much eruption green at the office this week. Now, driving up this trail in the full size Bronco, you you have to be doing something either so dumb or so financially irresponsible to really push this thing to its limit. That's true. The capabilities of this go well beyond where the majority of owners are going to want to take them, because this is not an inexpensive vehicle. We picked this full size Bronco up for around 55, 56,000, right? And it comes with a lot of goodies for the money. This is the smaller engine, so it's not the V6 EcoBoost. It's a four cylinder, but we've got all the off road gear that we need to run some pretty serious trails. The crazy thing is, though, for less money, that Bronco Sport has a lot more options that you might want on a daily basis. So, for example, this Everglades doesn't have power seats, doesn't have heated steering wheel, right? Doesn't have a premium audio system. These are all things that you can get for less money in the Bronco Sport. So what you're paying for with this vehicle is that capability. Yeah, and you're also with the Bronco Sport going to have a vehicle that's obviously a little bit more practical for day to day driving. It's not quite as big, so maybe not as much volume inside, but it's going to be easier to park. It's going to be a little bit better on fuel. That two liter Bronco Sport Badlands, especially with the Sasquatch package, isn't incredible on fuel economy, but it's better than this on 35s. So it's going to be a better daily driver in most ways. Like you said, better equipped, some slightly better materials and speakers. But if you really want to go run trails regularly, obviously this is going to be the better choice. Now we're coming across this little rock garden here, and I'm going to have Case hop out and film it. And I think what you're going to find is that with this level of ground clearance, this whole part of the trail is going to be nothing. But when we get to the Bronco Sport, things might get a little more interesting. It might be a different story. One of the wild things about this car is almost a little frustrating because you need such a difficult trail to really push yourself as a driver to the point where you're risking body damage in some cases. Whereas kind of one of the cool things about that little Bronco is you can really push some of your skills out here on a four or five out of ten trail without putting yourself in harm's way. And you're also risking just less money on that Bronco. So we're cruising up this section of trail. He's a good baby. I call these baby head sized rocks. And you kind of hear him crunching underneath the tire. We got our lockers off. We're in low range. Just keeping a mile or two mile an hour of momentum. And the thing's just crawling it like it doesn't doesn't give a dang. He's unreal, right? I will say, though, there are some spots where you are limited on line selection, not because of laziness, but because of trees. So through this section here, you're going to have to get a little bold with putting my right front on this larger rock that when we clear the control arm. There we go. Whereas I'm hoping with the little Bronco, we're able to kind of skid around some of that stuff, which would be pretty cool. OK, so I've had a terrible realization. What is it? I also thought these were the same tires as the full size. This is a territory. RT RT, yeah. Dang, it's a little different, a little different. I do have to give Ford a lot of credit, though, with this vehicle, because they have actually incorporated genuine off-road hardware. Yeah, for sure. Not just cladding and appearance bits to make it look tough, but also they've given the Sasquatch kind of a unique feeling compared to the standard Bronco Sport lineup. So even with the Bronco Sport, you get everything from like a base model three cylinder city slicker to a black diamond to this thing, right, that has massive skid plates relative to the class and recovery points front to back. I think it's pretty cool. And to your point, they are actual hardware improvements, which means that this is not just a visual difference between a base city slicker Bronco Sport and what we're driving now. What we're driving now is genuinely quite a bit more capable. The other thing, too, is that what makes this vehicle magic, I think that the single thing I can say that makes this vehicle special is that rear differential, right? That twin clutch rear differential, the ability to lock it up is such a game changer out here. Yeah, it really is. A rear locker goes such a long way. A great traction control system can do a lot, but you can't beat a mechanical locker, a true locker. And this vehicle does well because of that. I've said in the past, and I stand by this, that this Bronco Sport is as much off-roader as 99% of people need. It's probably more off-roader than I mean, we're doing stuff today on this. Well, probably a rated four out of 10 trail that most people would never even consider going over. They would see some of these rocks and be like, hey, maybe we'll take take our feet up that trail. So case has this good sized rock to traverse over. It doesn't look like much in camera. Of course, we get up close to it. Well, it's probably 10 inches tall, so he's going to have to be a little clever about how he approaches that. And we'll see if we get any scrappage. This Bronco Sport is plenty capable enough to get to any trailhead that you want to go to, to go mountain biking, go hiking. If you've got that active lifestyle like a lot of us have here in Colorado. This trail is difficult enough that really the only time you're going to end up on something like this is because you're running the trail for its own sake. I just love the fact that this has enough capability, enough traction and round about enough ground clearance for you to go run some trails for its own sake, run some trails just for fun and just to see what your vehicle is capable of. This is never going to be able to do as much as a Wrangler or a full size Bronco or a Defender or a 4Runner. But that's not really the point. And you can still go hit a lot of trails. There's no reason that you have to have the most capable vehicle on the face of the earth just to go run a trail and have some fun. There are plenty of limitations to this off road, like we've discussed. And fundamentally, this vehicle and the escape platform on which it's based is not ground up designed to be a capable four by four. That's not its primary intention. It was done somewhat after the fact. So you could tell this is a very stiff architecture, very stiff vehicle. You don't get a lot of flex. And like I said, you don't get a lot of articulation. And it's not the smoothest ride on the face of the earth going over a pretty rough surface like what we're driving through right now. But if you take it slow, it doesn't beat you up a ton. You can get through it just fine, fine enough that it's still a good time. This video is brought to you by our friends over at Onyx Offroad, the number one off road trail navigation software. Now we use Onyx to find all the coolest trails in our area. And you can also use it to find the best dispersed camping spots, which is a great use if you're out looking to do some exploring. My case is driving the final bit, the Big Bronco to the top of the mountain because I'm flying the drone. But look, this was cake. Oh, yeah. Cake. A walk in the park for the Big Bronco. That being said, this is still 100 percent a trail that you will see Wranglers on. You'll see Broncos here. So what we're doing is not unusual for a vehicle of even this level of capability, but all the extra sidewall on this Bronco with these thirty fives and the fact that this suspension system and this vehicle in general is just more so set up for this kind of terrain versus a Bronco sport. That is it's primarily a pavement vehicle, even in Sasquatch form. It makes a big difference. The comfort in here as well as the capability. Yeah, I mean, it's also just less stressful. Yeah, right. Because you know that you're going to be able to clear basically whatever you line up for. But you can see even on that hill, which probably doesn't look like anything camera, but it's a good like 20 percent of loose shale. There's so much grip out of this four wheel drive system in these particular tires. We kind of just bombed right up it. Yeah. And didn't need to use any momentum. Didn't need to use the lockers or anything fancy to get up it. It's just like you said, a cake walk in a vehicle. As capable as this, I kind of say I'm pretty blown away with this little guy. It is surprisingly good off road. I think every time that we take a Bronco sport onto a trail, we set our expectations kind of low and it surprises us most often because the majority of vehicles that this competes against are are not as good on the trail as this is. No, I mean, when you look at like the the Nissan and the Toyota and all that, right. They just they don't have the hardware you need for this kind of terrain. And this vehicle absolutely does. And I'm going to go even farther than say out of the box. Please know with no modification, no tire change, nothing. In the last 10 years, there are only two crossovers that I would feel comfortable using on a regular basis out on the trail. It's the Bronco Sport with the Badlands and now the new Sasquatch and the Cherokee Trailhawk, the KL with the low range. Yeah. Those are it. I mean, there's some other impressive ones like the Passport. And and but but those require some additional suspension changes or at least tire changes to be really good out of the box. But this thing, it's no full size Bronco. It's definitely working harder than the big boy did. But it's amazing what it'll do. And hey, that's not that's not a nothing endorsement coming from a Jeep guy. Dude, I know. I mean, genuinely, I don't like for fun. Apart from this job offroading, 99.9% of unibody single speed transfer case crossovers. No, because it's usually really bad. It's just they're uncomfortable. You're always running at a clearance. You don't feel like you have the adequate protection. You don't feel like you have the right tires. This thing has got it all. This sticker price is about forty five thousand forty six thousand five hundred. So it is definitely on the pricey side, especially for a vehicle of this size. So you got to shell out money to get it. It's less expensive than the full size Bronco, but not an inexpensive vehicle, period. But the question is, for 46, would you rather have you can just keep going? We'll just go to the very top. Would you rather have a base model full size or fully loaded sport? I'd rather have a base model full size because I'm a pretty impractical person. But we also live here in Colorado. And I love the fact that you can take the doors off, take the roof off. You can go run some really difficult trails where we're not far away from Moab. So I would spend the extra or just get a less well equipped full size Bronco myself. But I love these Bronco sports. I think they're really good. And as you can clearly see, we've made it right to the very top. So clearly it's got some real off road chops to it as well. Yeah, absolutely. Well, folks, let us know what you think in the comments section below. This has been Tommy. In case head over to all TFL dot com or subscribe to TFL off road dot com for more off road reviews. See you next time.