Don’t lie; you expect the new 2020 Ford Bronco to have a removable roof. The Jeep Wrangler has one, and so did the old-school classic Bronco. With that in mind, it’s damn near a necessity that the new Bronco features a removable roof – and the rumor mill seems to agree that it will happen. However, Ford may be taking things one step further, and has patented a design for a removable roll cage – something that would give the new Bronco an airy experience, but would also harken back to the days when you could very easily die in the event of a rollover – the old-school Bronco with the removable roof didn’t have a roll cage at all.

Ford Bronco Removable Roof

The new patent filed by Ford Showcases a Bronco – one that could easily be mistaken for a four-door Jeep Wrangler, by the way, with not only a removable roof but a removable roll cage. Long story short, the entire roll cage is bolted to the body in various places. If you remove the bolts from the B- and C-Pillars at the waistline, the cage will slide right out of the body. Bam, you have your open air Bronco.

There is one big problem, though. FAnd, we also have to have three-point belts, which means there’s some give and take that has to happen. So, to solve the seatbelt issue, Ford has devised a set of shorter pillars that will hold the third point of the seatbelt for rear passengers. Apparently, these posts will bolt to the floor and the side of the body for added strength.

The only problem that really remains is what will happen in the event of a rollover since there is no roll cage and no vertical support to protect rear passengers from being crushed. Ford could take the exotic route and have deployable safety posts or maybe some kind of crazy airbag setup that would inflate around passengers, but that doesn’t sound very likely either. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but the one thing we know for sure is that the new Bronco will undoubtedly be interesting, and it could very well pose a very serious threat to the Jeep Wrangler.

Further Reading

Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Ford Bronco.

Read our full review on the 2005 Ford Bronco.