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The Bronco Filson: An Off-Roader Designed to Wear In, Not Wear Out

Written By Dave Rivers, Head of Ford Enthusiast Brands
Jun 03, 2026
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I work the farm with my brother in it. I taught my daughter and son how to bird hunt in it. And on the nights we came in from the cold and cleaned up for dinner, I wore it then, too. It's taken a beating for years. And it still looks right on a barstool.

I'm talking about my Filson jacket. I’ve never wondered if it would be ready.

That's the aspiration we set for ourselves with the Bronco Filson SUV: We thought about it in terms of decades. An SUV so timeless, rugged, and capable that it makes lifelong memories with friends and family — something you build a life around, and one day hand down.

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As the head of enthusiast vehicles for Ford, it’s my job to translate what customers want into a successful product. They asked us to create a Bronco that takes premium materials, driving experience, and off-road capability to a new level. One that matches the very best gear in their kit. Bronco Filson is the answer to that question. 

The Bronco Filson is a premium version of the 6th-generation Ford Bronco, created in partnership with Filson, the Seattle-based maker of Unfailing Goods, and designed to combine serious off-road capability with a more refined driving experience. 

This is not a reinvention; it’s refining the experience further without losing the capability that makes the Bronco special.

Why Filson?

Ford and Filson are built for the same places. Both outfit people headed into challenging geography, and both believe the gear that gets you there should last long enough to hand down.

Filson was founded in 1897 to outfit prospectors headed to Alaska to seek their fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. Seattle was the launching point for those expeditions, and Filson is still based there today. 

Filson clothing isn’t something you have to worry about – you just trust it. You beat it up, you clean it up, and it keeps going. That thinking carried straight through to this interior. You get in, and it’s not trying to feel delicate. There’s quilted leather, yeah, but it’s designed to wear in with hard use, not wear out. The dash is wrapped in leather, not pieced together. Materials that are durable, not decorative. The differences are subtle, but it changes how you use the vehicle. 

Then there’s the gear side. The saddle bags in the doors, and in the triangle of the rear sport bars, these all came from understanding how people want to actually use their vehicle. You load them up with tools, gear, water bottles, whatever, and when you get where you’re going, you just grab the whole thing and head out.

There’s no need to dig around before you do what you came to do. These Filson-inspired bags are made from water- and dirt-resistant materials; we just replaced the snap buttons with magnets to make sure you don’t need to think about using them. 

It’s the same with the small things we added at Ford. Running boards can deploy automatically when you park, so you can step in rather than up. And there’s a rearview mirror that’s connected to a camera on the tailgate, so it still works when you’re fully packed with gear.

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Still a Bronco Under All of It 

Every Bronco Filson comes outfitted with a twin-turbo, 3.0-liter EcoBoost V6 that’s shared with Bronco Raptor and has been refined with tuning specific to Bronco Filson. It makes big horsepower, but it’s not dramatic about it. The truck just pulls when you need it to, climbing mud, loose rock, and more in those moments when hesitation costs you but you need to place your trust in your vehicle.

To take the experience to yet another level, the first thing we chased was quiet. It’s still open-air, it’s still a Bronco. You can remove the roof and doors just like you always could. But, when it’s buttoned up with the roof on and the windows up, it calms down. There’s less wind noise, and less road noise. In fact, we’ve reduced the perceived wind noise nearly 20% versus the 2021 Bronco.

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Each Bronco Filson is also fitted with the Bronco Sasquatch package — 35-inch tires, front and rear lockers, GOAT (Goes Over Any Type of Terrain) modes — so when the trail gets demanding, your vehicle’s ready. With Bronco Filson, we custom-tuned the piggyback reservoir Fox shocks for a combination of off-road capability and on-road ride quality.

None of this came together by accident. Our design team actually had a few Filson images up on the mood board when we designed the 6th generation Bronco. Stuff like a rugged twill shoulder bag stuffed full of fly-fishing gear. A beat-up tin cloth jacket on a backcountry hunter. And those were up there next to words like “trusted,” “honest,” and, “authentic.” That was part of our inspiration in the original Bronco design work. 

So we made the decision to call Filson, and told them, “Hey, the Bronco is coming back, we’d love to have a conversation with you guys.” 

And they said, “Well that’s interesting, because we’re rebuilding our brand book right now, and we said that if Filson was a car, we’d be a vintage Bronco.”

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A Partnership in the Outdoors’ Future

That was the start of the conversation that led to the 2020 Bronco Filson Wildland Fire Rig concept. We wanted to show that the vehicle people go have fun in can be the same vehicle that can get people to the places they need to be when duty calls, thanks to its rugged utility. 

As part of that conversation, we saw the work Filson was doing to give back to the firefighting community. Partnering with the National Forest Foundation, they restore historic fire lookout towers across the country. 

One of the original ideas around re-launching the Bronco was that it had to be more than just hardware people buy and enjoy. It had to also support the environment. So we created the Bronco Wild Fund and donate a portion of each Bronco sale to support causes like outdoor stewardship, public lands access, and trail preservation. 

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Together with the National Forest Foundation, the Bronco Wild Fund has sponsored the planting of over 2.3 million trees — one tree for every Bronco and Bronco Sport sold — across 42 reforestation sites, in addition to 23 other projects that have upgraded recreational infrastructure, improved public access, enhanced the health of forests and grasslands managed by the Forest Service, and helped restore trails in the Pisgah National Forest in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. This is stuff that can improve Bronco drivers’ ability to enjoy the outdoors. 

The relationship with Filson ended up giving us three unique things: 

  1. An authentic connection between the brands knowing that we both outfitted Forest Service workers in the 1960s. 
  2. That ability to give back to the people and places that make it possible for Bronco drivers to get outdoors.
  3. An opportunity to break the mold of what makes a premium, rugged 4x4. 

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One story that stuck with me through all of this came when I toured the Filson factory. Someone else was wearing a jacket from the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. One of their workers saw it and said, “I made that.” 

That’s the bar: something that sticks around long enough that the people who built it can see it still getting used the way it was meant to. That's usually the sign that you got it right.

My jacket's going deer hunting this fall. My daughter's old enough now that I'll mostly be watching. We'll load the truck, drive until the road runs out, and I'll step out into the cold with the jacket on. I don't expect to think about either one of them once. Which is exactly the point.

The Bronco Filson will be assembled at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant, with orders opening this fall ahead of arriving in showrooms early next year. Beginning in July, customers can experience the vehicle firsthand through the Bronco Filson Tour, a multi-city immersive showcase highlighting its design, materials, and capability. 

To complement the vehicle, a limited-edition Bronco x Filson collection will be available beginning June 4 exclusively at Filson stores and Filson.com, featuring signature logo wear including a midweight cotton-blend hoodie, durable tees, a classic hat and more.

Outdoor enthusiasts can learn more about the collaboration — and how it supports the Bronco Wild Fund — by visiting www.ford.com/suvs/bronco/ and Filson.com.