AMERICA HAS BEEN waiting for the Ford Bronco cake to be baked so long that now, standing here with the knife, I hardly know where to cut first. This beguiling, pomo-retro reimagining of the American classic (1966-1977) suffered a lengthy failure to launch due to the Covid crisis and the industrywide chip shortage. The situation left nearly 200,000 panting buckaroos holding their reservations. All better now, though.

Built on a hugely strong, fully boxed steel frame with seven transverse elements—which of course Ford calls the T6 architecture—Bronco takes on Jeep Wrangler in the emerging heavy-duty 4×4, or “adventure vehicle,” segment. Emerging, because now there are two. The Bronco brand is henceforth its own thing, with dedicated lifestyle merch, factory and aftermarket parts and upgrades, wheels and tires, camping gear, winches, brush bars, Baja lights…You know the drill. Also, a drill.

Soft-top or optional hardtop; two doors or four; four cylinders (315 lb-ft) or six (410 lb-ft); six manual gears or 10 automatic; locking diffs, yea or nay? The Sasquatch Package’s 35-inch beadlock mudder tires afford a ground clearance of 11.5 inches and approach/departure angles of 43.2/37.0 degrees. With seven trim levels, four optional packages, and prices from $28,500 (two-door) to more than $50,000, the Bronco is a veritable buffet de cheval.

Before its arrival, I might have misjudged the Bronco’s generational bandwidth. I assumed old desert prospectors like me would dig it. In high school I coveted a friend’s Bronco so much he was afraid to go into the woods alone with me.

But decades later, my 13-year-old daughter Vivienne hopped in the back seat of the new one—through a none-too-generous rear door opening, onto the meager bench seating with less than ample leg room—and, ignoring all, declared it “adorable.” I asked my wife Tina if the Bronco looked too square. “It can’t be too square.”