The Ford Bronco was introduced to go head-to-head with the Jeep Wrangler for the title of the most off-road capable SUV from the factory and frankly, it is the best competitor to the Wrangler in decades. The Bronco is very capable off-road, it offers a slightly smoother ride and it has a bit more interior space than the Wrangler, making it a good choice for anyone who want an off-road vehicle that is more comfortable when on the road. Of course, the Wrangler still has an edge in the most extreme off-road situations while being the only one of the two to be offered with a big V8.
Since being introduced, the Bronco has sold pretty well and it even outsold the Wrangler in the fourth quarter of 2022, but after that first full year of sales, Jeep won the race by more than 60,000 units. However, Ford fans insisted that the Bronco was slowed by production delays and that it would only be a matter of time before the Wrangler was knocked from its throne.
So far through 2023, that is not the case. Ford got pretty close in the first quarter, trailing the Wrangler by roughly 5,500 units, but in the second quarter, Jeep put a 20,000-unit lead on the Bronco in the annual sales race.
In the second quarter of 2023, Jeep sold 46,671 examples of the Wrangler. During that same period, Ford sold just 26,150 Broncos, so after a decent first quarter by both of America’s off-road heroes, the Jeep saw sales boom while the Bronco slumped. The second quarter of 2023 was the worst sales quarter since Q1 of 2022 and the second-worst since the Broncos were fully available across the country. As a result, the Wrangler jumped out to a huge lead in the annual sales race, with 84,642 Wranglers sold to just 58,580 Ford Broncos sold during the first half of 2023.
With this huge annual lead, the odds are very good that the Jeep Wrangler will once again be the bestselling off-road SUV in America in 2023, but it will be interesting to see how the rest of this year goes for each of these models.
