Ford’s New Filson Bronco Is Like a Rugged Duffel Bag with a V6
A truck wearing an outdoor brand’s name is not a new idea. Ford has done this dance before. In the early nineties there was an Eddie Bauer Bronco with two-tone paint and nicer leather, a way for Ford to dip its toe into the almost-luxe mark…
A truck wearing an outdoor brand’s name is not a new idea. Ford has done this dance before. In the early nineties there was an Eddie Bauer Bronco with two-tone paint and nicer leather, a way for Ford to dip its toe into the almost-luxe marketplace without going full-on fancy. The pitch then is not unlike the pitch now: take a machine that’s good at going off-road, and make the inside nice enough that you’ll actually enjoy the long ride and spending time in the car.
The difference this time is the partner. Ford called Filson.
Filson has been making gear in Seattle since 1897, back when the job was outfitting prospectors heading for the Yukon—people who would perish if their gear failed. That’s the lineage Ford is buying into with the first-ever Bronco Filson, which was just unveiled today.
Every Bronco Filson comes standard with the Sasquatch package: front and rear locking diffs, Fox shocks with internal bypass, and 35-inch tires that Ford claims are the biggest on any premium 4×4. Under the hood is the 3.0-liter EcoBoost V6, the same engine that lives in the Raptor, retuned. Seven G.O.A.T. modes. Trail Turn Assist and one-pedal rock crawling make off-roading feel like pointing and shooting.
What Filson is here is a massive cabin upgrade. It has quilted leather, perforated, with seat trim that nods to the brand’s rugged twill. There’s a leather-wrapped dash and a brass bezel on the steering wheel. “There is a massive difference between premium and precious,” Ford’s global design director Paul Wraith said in the press announcement. If you’re afraid to get the cabin dirty, he added, it doesn’t belong in a Bronco. The interior isn’t meant to wear down—it’s meant to wear in like a well-used, waxed-canvas jacket.
The genuinely clever move is the storage. Filson-inspired removable bags are built throughout—door-mounted saddlebags, optional cargo bags in water- and dirt-resistant material, with compartments you can configure for fly boxes, a first-aid kit, and camera lenses. You unclip them and walk them straight to camp. The vehicle becomes a duffel with a V6.
The rest is comfort, earned or otherwise. Ford says this is the quietest Bronco yet—acoustic glass, better seals, nearly 20 percent less wind noise than the 2021 truck. Ventilated front seats. Heated rears. A B&O sound system. As well as a digital rearview mirror that still works when you’ve packed the cargo area to the headliner.
There’s a First Edition for North America, painted in an exclusive shade called Iron Sands Copper Metallic, with a serialized console badge. Orders open this fall and should be in showrooms in early 2027.
What Ford hasn’t said is the part everyone wants: the price. The release doesn’t list one, and there’s no MSRP yet. If we were to guess, we’d say it’s in the high-$60,000s to low-$70,000s—over a loaded Badlands, under a Raptor. Worth noting, too: despite the First Edition, the Filson isn’t a limited run. It’s a permanent trim, slotting in next to Outer Banks and Badlands.
The Eddie Bauer Bronco eventually went away. Trims and collabs do. But the idea—that the outdoors deserve good gear, and that a vehicle is gear—keeps coming back. This time it’s wearing tin cloth. It suits it.
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