The Ford Bronco Sport is a Ford Bronco, but it's also not. It’s the mini Bronco, styled and named so that the big Bronco’s off-road reputation might help woo casual buyers. But that also makes you wonder: Is the Bronco Sport worthy of its name?
The 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch is here to prove that it is.
2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch
The big Bronco is a hardcore off-roader that competes with the Jeep Wrangler. It rides on a modified version of the Ford Ranger’s body-on-frame platform, which makes it more flexible for off-roading. The Bronco Sport, meanwhile, is more about on-road driving. It doesn’t have all the fancy perks of the big Bronco, and it’s based on the unibody Escape crossover, which is more fuel-efficient and car-like.
For 2025, the Bronco Sport comes standard with four-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic transmission. It also has five trims and two engine options: a 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine making 180 horsepower and 200 pound-feet of torque, and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder with 238 horsepower and 277 pound-feet.
The Sasquatch off-road package makes its way from the big Bronco to the smaller Bronco Sport. It’s an optional add-on on the top-tier Outer Banks and Badlands trims for 2025, and it has features like a twin-clutch rear-drive unit, a locking rear differential, steel underbody protection, Bilstein rear shocks, and 29-inch all-terrain tires.
Pros: Great Off-Road Hardware, Smart Software, Excellent Capabilities
Those upgrades give the Bronco Sport Sasquatch 8.3 inches of suspension travel up front and 9.0 inches in the rear, and the ability to ford 23.6 inches of water. That’s pretty good compared to the big Bronco’s maximum wading depth of 33.5 inches.
Ford hasn’t said how much the Sasquatch package will cost on the Bronco Sport, or how much the 2025 Bronco Sport will be. But in 2024, the base price for the Bronco Sport Outer Banks is $35,500, the Bronco Sport Badlands is $40,000, and on the big Bronco Badlands, the Sasquatch package costs a minimum of $5,000.
The 2025 Bronco Sport Sasquatch won’t be available until early next year, but Ford brought us out for a 15-minute drive on its new off-road course in Maryville, Tennessee. We were in pre-production cars on a course of Ford’s choosing—some dirt, mud, divots, and 20-degree tilts—but the Sasquatch still felt plenty capable.
The Bronco Sport Sasquatch has seven drive modes: Normal, Eco, Sport, Slippery, Off-Road, Rally, and Rock Crawl. We only used three on this drive: Off-Road mostly, then both Rock Crawl and Rally briefly.
Rock Crawl locks the differential. The twin-clutch rear-drive unit has two clutch packs that control each rear wheel independently, allowing just one to propel the car if needed, and it can also act as a locking differential. Locking diffs are common on off-roaders, moving the wheels in lockstep instead of spinning the one with the least resistance, like an open differential would.
The Sasquatch's dedicated Off-Road mode has a reserved throttle response for treks over bumpy terrain, while Rally mode makes the gas pedal more responsive for faster driving. Like any good modern off-roader, the Sport Sasquatch’s suspension absorbed bumps in Off-Road mode as they traveled up the car. I felt the uneven terrain in my legs, but it didn’t make my head chatter. It was comfortable even when the ground underneath it wasn’t.
Cons: Absorbent Interior, Doesn't Look As Hardcore As It Could
The car also had trail control (like cruise control, but for off-roading) and one-pedal driving, which are both meant to make crawling speeds less taxing by removing the need to undulate both pedals. Trail control hilariously starts at 1 mph, and one-pedal driving involves only using the accelerator to speed up and slow down the car.
As soon as you lift your foot off, the car will apply the brakes—and in these early models, the auto-braking felt like a stomp. I didn’t mind how strong it was, but when I asked, Ford didn’t say whether the final production one-pedal braking would be stronger, the same, or weaker.
The Bronco Sport Sasquatch had handy features like bash plates on the front and rear of the car, off-road cameras to show the terrain, recovery points on all four corners if you get stuck while off-roading, and handles near the side mirrors that Ford says are placed to avoid rubbing the paint with tie-down straps. But my favorite part was the gauge cluster.
The Bronco Sport Sasquatch had a display in Off-Road mode that showed the angle of the car, so when I drove it on a big bump or dip, I could see just how tilted I was. I hit 20 degrees on a mud rut, and it’s a fun way to interact with the terrain. When you go home, you don’t just get to tell your friends you had your car sideways in a rut—you get to tell them you had it 20 degrees sideways. That’s way cooler.
I didn’t have enough time in the Sasquatch to find problems with its driving, and I didn’t get to take it on the road—the place it’ll likely spend most of its time. But I did notice pain points inside.
I sat in a Bronco Sport Badlands with a light gray interior, and all I could think about was mud. The Badlands had a light, cloth headliner that looked ready to absorb stains, and the seats had a light-colored cloth section around the shoulder blades that looked the same. The big Bronco can also be bought with a marine-grade vinyl interior and interior water-drainage system, but the baby Bronco doesn’t get that treatment (yet, at least).
But even without all of the big Bronco's off-road features, the Bronco Sport Sasquatch is capable. It can do all the things a normal person wants it to, and it can also hang on the off-road course.
The saddest part about the big Bronco, to me, is how many people will buy it and never use it for the things it’s so good at. They’ll drive it to school or the grocery store, letting its incredible off-road capabilities go unused and unacknowledged. The Bronco Sport Sasquatch is far more than enough for the average buyer, and after a few minutes in the car, it feels like it may even be enough for the experienced off-roader.
The Bronco Sport has always been marketed as the baby Bronco, and the Sasquatch feels ready to defend that reputation—in mud, ruts, water, or anywhere else you want to test it.
Gallery: 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch First Drive Review
