Now you see it, now you don’t.
Ford has received a patent on a clever new door for its off-road trucks.
The “Convertible Skeleton Door” combines a tube door, like those currently sold as accessories for the Ford Bronco, with a removable shell.
The Ford Bronco has easily removable full doors that can be replaced by the hinged tube doors, which provide some side intrusion protection while creating more of an open-air experience.
CHINESE FORD BRONCO IS NO KNOCKOFF
The patented design would allow owners to have the best of both worlds without needing to keep two different doors around.
The tube door effectively works as the frame for a skin, which also houses a window.
The patent drawings use what appears to be an old full-size Bronco to depict how the doors work, but their application would clearly be for the current mid-size model if they went into production.
REVIEW: THE 2023 FORD BRONCO SPORT HERITAGE LIMITED IS AN INSTANT CLASSIC:
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There’s no guarantee that would happen, as automakers patent new ideas that never come to fruition all the time, but there are already hundreds of Bronco accessories and no end to Ford’s efforts to one-up its Jeep Wrangler rival.
Along with the tube doors, it also offers cutaway doors from Fab Fours that give the Bronco the look of the doorless 1966 Bronco Roadster.