The 7-speed manual gearbox is a bigger hit than Ford expected.
Ford’s received more than 125,000 orders for the Bronco.
The can’t-arrive-soon-enough Ford Bronco, the real Bronco, is already a hit. Demand and interest are through the roof and with 125,000 orders already in the bag, Ford’s made a very revealing discovery: Their customers want the manual transmission.
2021 Ford Bronco Two-Door Interior | Photo: Ford
The actual percentage of Bronco buyers that checked the box for the 7-speed manual transmission is 18%. Roughly 23,000 of these people, who selected the 2.3-litre EcoBoost 4-cylinder engine, rejected the 10-speed automatic transmission in favour of the row-your-own-gears transmission. Unfortunately, if buyers want the more potent 2.7-litre EcoBoost V6, the only transmission available is the automatic.
As reported by CarBuzz, this demonstrates that demand for manual transmissions still exists in the US. So popular for Ford in fact that they decided after the launch of the Bronco to offer even with the off-road dedicated Sasquatch package. The gearbox’s low-range crawler gear ratio is 94.75 which enables some impressively relaxed serious off-roading.
We’re curious to see what will happen in the next few years with these manual Broncos. If history has anything to say about it, it might hold a stronger resale value.
