People are already beyond excited for the Ford Bronco, but here’s the thing. We are only in early stages of this off-road revival. Ford has already said that there will be a plethora of factory-backed accessories when the SUV hits dealerships. That should allow for all kinds of customization for Bronco shoppers, and while we don’t have complete information on accessories, cool tube doors will be among them.
We’ve seen patents on these tubular doors that have airbags, but the thirsty Bronco fans at Bronco6g.com have gone a step further. Enthusiasts found a back door in Ford’s Bronco configurator that, among other things, pretty much showed us the trim level and Bronco color option. We covered the dizzying array of photos last week, but there’s one we miss. Muscle Cars & Trucks collected in a Bronco with tubular doors.
The funny thing here is that the tubular doors seem to appear as part of the Bronco configurator. Normally we don’t see accessories like this in a configurator, but then again we don’t see any new vehicles represented in mud and grime. It raises the possibility that tubular doors are not a rear accessory but an optional door style. We recall a rumor from some time ago that the Bronco possibly has tubular doors with what amounts to a removable skin, leaving the internal structure in place. Ford is not yet talking about accessories or even in-depth options at this point, so for now, we are left wondering.
Another point to consider here is the thick vertical assembly at the top of each tube frame. We previously mentioned a patent for airbags on tubular doors, and these structures seem large enough to accommodate them. That’s far from an official confirmation that the Bronco will have tubular doors equipped with airbags, but it certainly fits with previous rumors about such things.
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Of course, this all depends on the image being a legitimate Ford capture and not a clever Photoshop job. Unfortunately, Ford closed the back door that allowed all of these images to appear first, so there is no way to verify this on our own. That said, the particular thread on the forum it came from was full of photos of the Bronco configurator that were real, and the forum member 72roadster He’s the same person behind all these shots, including the one here. In other words, we have little reason to doubt the credibility of this shot being real.
When will we have a full disclosure on tubular doors? At the latest, we’ll hear about it when the Bronco hits dealerships next year.
