Despite its humble Ford Escape underpinnings, the new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport is a promising entrant in the unibody off-road utility vehicle segment, with all the makings of a properly rugged, capable crossover. All-wheel drive is fitted as standard, with specially tuned performance drive modes suitable for a range of different terrain types, and its unique suspension gives it significantly more travel than the Escape, with 0.8 inches of added track width.
Besides all that, the 2021 Ford Bronco Sport certainly looks the part, with a boxy, square-jawed design language that borrows from the regular body-on-frame Bronco. And that's gotten one artist wondering: what would the new Bronco Sport look like as a butch, go-anywhere police vehicle?
This is the Ford Bronco Sport Police Interceptor Utility, as imagined by Russian designer Aksyonov Nikita. To make it, Nikita essentially took the civilian version of the unibody off-roader and sat it on a set of classic-looking black-and-chrome wheels borrowed from the Ford Explorer Police Interceptor Utility, plastered it with a convincing law enforcement livery, and rendered with a full set of standard police lights and a tough-looking push bar.
To be clear, this vehicle doesn't actually exist outside the digital realm; it's just an artist's rendering from an artist by the name of Aksyonov Nikita. But it shows what's possible should Ford decide to start selling the new Bronco Sport to US law enforcement agencies.
And really, the business case for offering the Ford Bronco Sport to law enforcement might be strong. Recognizing the need among some agencies for a rugged, off-road-capable police vehicle, Ford began selling a custom-tailored version of its popular F-150 pickup to law enforcement some years ago. Those same agencies might well have use for an off-road-capable utility vehicle with added cabin space and better fuel efficiency.
For now, though, we have no knowledge of any plans to sell the Ford Bronco Sport to law enforcement, no matter how slick this rendering might look.