How Ford's Rushed Bronco II Became A Target For Rollover Lawsuits

Ford has had its share of infamous missteps. The Pinto is usually the one that gets called out, but the Bronco II doesn't live in pop-culture infamy the same way — though it arguably should. Ford frantically pushed the Bronco II into the booming two-door SUV segment, and it quickly developed a reputation for deadly rollovers that dragged the brand into years of lawsuits and eye-popping settlements. 

The small-but-mighty Ford Bronco II was rolled out for the 1984 model year and was built on the Ford Ranger's chassis. It sat alongside the full-size Bronco in Ford's lineup and targeted a younger demographic. The tall SUV body paired with a relatively narrow stance and short wheelbase are attractive commuter proportions, but they were also the classic recipe for rolling over in emergency maneuvers. Despite knowing the rollover risks, Ford still went forward without fixing the issues in the spirit of being early to the compact SUV segment. And so, the slippery slope began.

Ford sold well over 750,000 RWD and 4WD Bronco IIs before stopping production in 1990, but by then, its problems were just getting started. By 1992, the legal pressure was impossible for Ford to overlook. Ford was facing over $700 million across 13 lawsuit claims tied to the Bronco II, and over the next few years, $113 million was paid out across 334 settlements. That's an enormous amount of smoke for something that wasn't supposed to be on fire, and those courtroom consequences weren't theoretical.

In 1994, the LA Times reported that Ford agreed to pay $1.35 million to settle with a man who was paralyzed in a Bronco II rollover. Years later, a California appellate court upheld nearly $26 million in damages in another Bronco II rollover that left a man disabled, affirming a jury finding that design defects were partly to blame. And things only got worse for Ford in 2003, when an Environmental Working Group investigation found that engineers were told to cancel specific test drives for the safety of test drivers. The same investigation also found that a considerable amount of handling documentation from the summer of 1982 had vanished, along with any safety concerns they might have covered.

The Bronco II story keeps resurfacing because of its unique spot at the intersection of SUV popularity and SUV physics. You can market a compact truck-based utility vehicle as adventurous and practical, but if the platform's proportions and dynamics don't leave enough margin for real-world mistakes, your legacy will be defined by its fatalities. As reported by the New York Times, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that the rear-wheel-drive model accounted for 3.78 deaths for every 10,000 registered vehicles and the 4WD version accounted for 1.74 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles between 1986 and 1990. 

Although these are already disastrous numbers, some still dispute it. Adam Penenberg, author of "Blood Highways," claims one in every 500 units were involved in a fatal rollover accident — meaning over 1,500 deaths are tied to the Bronco II. Some would argue in the other direction and say that the Bronco II is underappreciated, but it remains a cautionary tale for every modern SUV built on the promise of capability. Stability isn't a feature that can be added later, and "good enough" stops being enough the moment a vehicle goes shiny-side down. The modern-day Ford Bronco still isn't exceptionally reliable, but it's avoided having the same rollover issues and is now one of the company's bestselling models.