The 2020 Ford Bronco is available in three variants with six tyre sizes. It remains to been seen which variants will get the special GoodYear rubber
With its all-new Bronco, Ford is taking a straight shot at the Jeep Wrangler, America’s incumbent off-road king. Branding goes a long way in the automotive industry but both Bronco and Wrangler have immense recall in the North American market. So, when Ford faced the situation of having to use the Wrangler brand prominently on the new Bronco’s off-road tyres supplied by GoodYear, it naturally became as issue.
The GoodYear Wrangler tyres also have a very strong brand identity in global off-road tyre market but one doesn’t have to be a marketing genius to understand that this identity will not go well with the new Ford Bronco.
To Wrangler, or not to Wrangler
Imagine the Wrangler branding appearing prominently on the new Bronco’s exterior not once but five times! Ford could have easily gone with a different supplier but given how good the GoodYear Wrangler SUV tyres are, the American automaker requested its vendor to come up with special Bronco-spec tyres minus the Wrangler branding.
Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to be the official tyre supplier for the new Ford Bronco, and at the same time, not wanting to forgo its Wrangler trademark, GoodYear came up with an interesting solution. The official Ford Bronco spec off-road tyres will from GoodYear will carry the Wrangler branding on the inner sides rather than having it prominently on the outward sidewalls.
Solution?
Wrangler is still an important brand for GoodYear in the aftermarket segment and hence it can’t afford to supply Ford without its identity. However, it will only be visible when the wheels are off for a repair. Ford liked the idea.
The arrangement is something similar to the one TVS Tyres and Bajaj Auto have. The factory-fitted Eurogrip tyres on Bajaj motorcycles do not carry TVS branding. However, the press images of the Ford Bronco shows the vehicle shod with regular tyres with visible Wrangler branding on the sidewalls.
New Ford Wrangler variants
The 2020 Ford Bronco is available in three variants of which two are off-road oriented with Ranger’s ladder frame underpinnings. The third variant, Bronco Sport soft-roader, shares its hardware with Escape. All the three variants adopt a retro-classic styling which carries forward the iconic original SUV’s salient design characters.
Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely for the new Bronco to come to our market.
