MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Adding a Sasquatch package to the 2025 Ford Bronco Sport sounds a little silly at first. If you really want off-road capability, just buy the regular Bronco, right? Well, that’s still the answer I’d give you, but the Bronco Sport is undeniably more enticing this year for the light off-roader who might not want to deal with the compromises of a single-minded, body-on-frame off-road SUV.
Here’s all about the changes Ford has made for 2025. But in addition to telling us about the new features, Ford also let us drive the Sasquatch in prototype form. We only drove it for about 20 minutes at the company’s Tennessee Off-Roadeo site, but it was enough to find out that the Sasquatch will surprise you with the kind of terrain it can handle.
The Sasquatch builds on the Badlands, one of two trim levels it can complement, but we’ll get to the other in a moment. The list of additional features is long. Ford mounts Bilstein shocks with position-sensitive damping and piggyback reservoirs that better absorb more extreme high-speed events. New front and rear springs increase ground clearance by 0.6 inches over the Badlands, to a very Subaru-like 8.7 inches, and extend suspension travel by the same amount. Trim-specific 29-inch Goodyear Territory all-terrain tires are standard, designed specifically for this model with a much more aggressive tread—they certainly look it. Protection is significantly increased with a front skid plate, front and rear bumpers with steel skid plates, even more skid plates, and additional, stronger tow hooks. Said bumpers are also now modular, offering the ability to attach a range of accessories such as light bars, dune flags and more.
All of the above is added to the Badlands’ optional equipment, which means most of it (with one major exception) will also be added to the other Sasquatchable Bronco Sport: the Outer Banks. That includes the dual-clutch rear-wheel drive with torque vectoring and limited-slip rear differential that were previously exclusive to the Badlands. However, the upgrade to the 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is not included. The Outer Banks will continue to have the 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, but regardless of the powertrain (both will see their overall output downgraded slightly due to emissions requirements), Ford says the rear differential will be upgraded with a larger thermal capacity for 2025. That’s especially good for anyone who enjoys off-roading.
Besides the same additional Sasquatch equipment, the Outer Banks version gains a full inch more ground clearance over the regular variant, for a total of 8.8 inches (that’s right, it has a tenth of an inch more than the Badlands), and similarly larger jumps at approach and breakover angles. In short, it’s a much bigger deal for the Outer Banks.
That said, it’s perhaps not surprising that Ford transported us to the Badlands with the Sasquatch package. On the recently rain-soaked, muddy trails of southern Tennessee, the little Bronco Sport’s all-terrain tires slipped and slid in both light and moderate off-road events. The 8.7 inches of ground clearance lets you negotiate obstacles that are simply out of the realm of possibility for such a small, monocoque crossover. Some obstacles that were meant to test the suspension’s articulation (of which there’s very little) instead highlighted the new rear shocks, showing off their ability to land the Bronco Sport back on the ground without sending shockwaves through the cabin. That said, Ford didn’t want to throw anything at us that the Bronco Sport couldn’t do in such a short time behind the wheel, nor did we get a chance to see how those more extreme off-road bits translate to on-road use (we complained about first drives in the Ford F-150 Raptor and Ranger Raptor).
The chunkier off-road tires could result in a noisier ride on the highway and longer stopping distances. It was basically impossible to find out how the new Bilstein rear shocks would fare on the street, but given the damping technology in question, we have high hopes. Ford engineers told us the goal was not to affect on-road handling with these off-road improvements, but we’ll have to wait and see what the end result is after more driving time.
What’s easy to see is how much of an upgrade the new tech in the Bronco Sport is for 2025. The new 13.2-inch Sync 4 infotainment system, which sits alongside the 12.3-inch all-digital instrument panel, is a huge upgrade from the mediocre to middling tech it offered before. Animations and responses are both fluid and quick. Having the instrument panel adapt to the current driving mode is a neat trick to tune you into the type of terrain you’re tackling. Plus, the improved trail cameras that display at any speed while driving off-road couldn’t be better executed, now with guidelines for both of your front tires and a high-resolution video feed.
We even tried out the new One-Pedal Drive mode, which lets you control the Bronco Sport’s speed in slower sections using just the accelerator, making it function a bit like an electric vehicle with regenerative braking. The goal is to make off-road driving more accessible to beginners, allowing you to focus more of your attention on the trail and your steering, rather than having to jump back and forth between the throttle and brake.
It’s difficult to draw many (or any) concrete conclusions about a prototype vehicle after only a short time spent exclusively on off-road trails, especially while we’re still waiting for official pricing, which could make a big difference in how much we recommend the package. Whether or not we’d choose the Sasquatch would also depend heavily on how it performs on pavement, as that’s where a Bronco Sport will likely spend most of its time. For those who can’t decide between the big Bronco and the little Bronco Sport, fearing the Sport isn’t capable enough for their use case, this Sasquatch could be the version that makes the difference. There’s no denying that this will be the preferred trim for the “power user.” And even if you don’t take full advantage of its extra capabilities, there’s no denying that the Sasquatch is now officially the coolest Bronco Sport of them all.
