There's a lot of mystery surrounding the all-new Bronco. Ford's highly anticipated off-roader still hasn't broken cover, despite being announced over two years ago. Ford has begun testing prototypes of the new Bronco, and luckily for us, one of them was recently spotted out in the wild. The crew at The Fast Lane Car discovered the early prototype roaming the streets and quickly gave chase to film the new Bronco in action.

As we've seen in previous spy photos, this is clearly a test mule with a Ford Ranger cab, but you can still clearly see the short wheelbase and the unusual proportions of the future Bronco. Also notice that Ford has gone to great lengths to cover up the entire rear axle with a large fabric mesh, preventing us from seeing the shocks, brakes, linkage and axle configuration. This suggests it may not use a solid rear axle like the one used in the current Ford Ranger.

For the first time, we also get to hear the prototype start up, and it sounded like the Bronco was using the Ranger's 2.3-liter four-cylinder unit. The driver of the prototype managed to evade the pursuing journalists, but they soon caught up as the Bronco got stuck behind a slow-moving semi-truck while climbing up a Colorado mountain pass for some high-altitude testing. This allowed the team to get a good close-up of the SUV's rear.

A single exhaust outlet can be seen, and the taillights also appear to be borrowed from the Ranger. Curiously, the suspension has been completely covered up. For whatever reason, Ford really doesn't want you to see the new Bronco's suspension. Sadly, the crew didn't get to see any of the Bronco's interior, but it seems unlikely that it will have many production parts at this stage since it's clearly a very early prototype.

We still have a long time to wait for the new Bronco to arrive in production form, as the larger model isn't expected to arrive until 2021, while the smaller version of the off-roader is expected to debut next year.