Don't Buy A Ford Bronco For $41,525, Do This Instead...

When Ford introduced the original Bronco way back in 1966, it carried a starting price tag of around $2,200.

Granted, the very basest of base versions didn’t include, well, anything other than a seat for the driver, a steering wheel, a pair of shifters (one column-mounted for the three-speed manual transmission and another on the floor to shift the four-wheel-drive transfer case), and some pedals.

The Roadster came with no doors or top (but offered various options for those who wanted them), the Sports Utility edition had a small steel roof and doors to go with its open rear compartment, and the Wagon version was fully enclosed.

Ford called the OG Bronco “the vehicle of 1,001 uses” and touted that it was “designed to go anywhere.” Those 22 Benjamins for the Bronco Roadster translate to just over $22,000 today.

Or, if you want to be pragmatic about it, just over $41,000. That’s what a brand-new 2025 Ford Bronco costs in what is today its most basic form, with two doors. Ford’s 2025 advertising says that “there’s a Bronco for everyone,” which we suppose is true enough— for those who can afford one.

We’re not going to pretend that the 2025 Bronco represents an apples-to-apples comparison when put up against the stripped-down 1966 edition. Far from it, in fact. We love the reborn Bronco and think it’s a worthy competitor to its arch nemesis, the Jeep Wrangler. If you’ve got the cash to buy a new Bronco and would never consider anything else, that’s great.

For the rest of us, we’ve selected three used options that we think potential 2025 Bronco buyers might want to consider. As we always do when we consider these exercises, we’ve limited our picks to cars sold within the last few years and with no more than the average of 12,000 miles per year on their odometers.

Option 1: Jeep Wrangler

You knew this was coming. The fact of the matter is that the Ford Bronco probably wouldn’t exist in its current form if it weren’t for the ongoing success of the Jeep Wrangler. If you’re shopping for one, you owe it to yourself to take a good, long look at the Jeep. For the 2025 Bronco’s $41,525 price, you can get a heck of a nice Wrangler on the used market. Choose between two or four doors, a turbocharged four-cylinder, a naturally aspirated V6, or even a 4xe-badged plug-in hybrid.

For this little exercise, we cast a net across the entirety of the United States with a cap at $45,000 and found a total of five 2024 Wrangler 4xe models in top-shelf Rubicon X trim. In other words, it’s not realistic to think that exact model will be available to anyone who’s currently in the market. So instead, we set our sights on a Wrangler with the standard V6 and a manual transmission. There are hundreds of them for sale in all trim levels with fewer than 40,000 miles on their odometers for less than $40,000 (and plenty more for $10,000 less).

Option 2: Toyota 4Runner

If you love to experience life in the outdoors as far off the beaten path as possible, one of the most reliable ways to get there is nestled inside the blocky confines of a Toyota 4Runner. While the new 4Runner is a much more modern machine, the version we’re considering here (production of which ended after the 2024 model year) uses an old-school 4.0-liter V6 hooked up to an even older-school five-speed automatic. It won’t set any speed or efficiency records, but this powertrain is as reliable as a Nokia 3310.

We’re singling out the 4Runner TRD Off-Road edition. Opt for its Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (KDSS) swaybar disconnect tech, and it’s a perfectly capable off-road machine that’ll get you where you want to go while still delivering sufficient comfort on pavement.

Option 3: Range Rover

Okay, we admit we’re only kinda being serious with this one. Still, at the time this was written, there were 100 or more Range Rovers with less than 40,000 miles for sale in the United States in the price range of a base Bronco. Most of them are powered by six-cylinder engines, but a not insignificant number of them have 518-horsepower V8s underhood.

If you want to travel in luxury without worrying about what sort of terrain you’ll encounter, there’s hardly a better vehicle to choose than a Range Rover.

Should You Buy A Ford Bronco?

Now, should you go out and buy a used Range Rover when what you really want is a new Bronco? Absolutely not. We love ‘em, but these high-tech luxury SUVs depreciate quickly for a reason. If you’re not prepared to properly maintain a used Range Rover, you definitely should not buy one. On the other, more rational hand, a nicely optioned Wrangler or 4Runner is a perfectly reasonable alternative to a base Bronco, especially now that the starting price has risen some $10,000 from the $29,995 MSRP Ford advertised when the sixth-gen Bronco first hit the scene in 2021.

For what it’s worth, the 2025 Wrangler starts at $34,090 if you’re looking for a new off-roader for the least sum of money. That said, the Bronco is an excellent machine that, while still behind by more than 40,000 units last year, is slowly gaining on its chief rival from Jeep on the sales floor. We’re especially fond of the Bronco Heritage edition, which, all things considered, isn’t a bad deal at its $50,000 price point. But, um, so is a used Hemi V8-powered Jeep Wrangler 392.

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