2023 auto sales and 2024 preview: Ford Bronco vs. Jeep Wrangler

Five years ago, Ford gave us our first concrete proof that a new Bronco was in the works. At the time, we had no clue what would transpire when the revived 4x4 came to market, and now, nearly four years after is tumultuous launch, production has more or less stabilized, setting the stage for a showdown decades in the making. Sure, we can compare the Bronco and 2024 Jeep Wrangler all day long, but the proof is in the pudding: Which one do Americans want to buy? Here are the numbers and why they matter.

2023 mainstream midsize off-road SUVs

The numbers:

1. Jeep Wrangler - 156,581

2. Ford Bronco - 105,665

In 2023, the answer was Jeep, and it wasn't even close. The Wrangler outsold the Bronco by nearly 50%, in fact. And even with 105,665 units sold, Ford's midsize off-roader underperformed compared to 2022 by nearly 10%. As we noted in our 2023 sales trends recap, using data from the Covid era to gauge real-world popularity is fraught, but sometimes it's all we've got. In the case of the Bronco, we can't refer to 2019 sales data. Ford was still working through the aftershocks of the Bronco's launch and a portfolio-wide initial quality crisis that would have slowed it down in 2023, not to mention the late-summer strike, however both the Bronco and Wrangler were targeted early on by the UAW.

Meanwhile, Jeep managed to sell 156,581 Wranglers in the same period. That was also down from 2022 — by nearly 20%, in fact — and way down from 2019, when Jeep moved 228,032 of its soft-top four-wheelers. In the years leading up to 2020, the Wrangler was in danger of outselling the Toyota Camry. Today, the sedan enjoys a comfortable margin of more than 100,000 units. What happened? In a word, Bronco.