Brazilian couple turns Ford Bronco Sport into home to cross the Americas

The Ford Bronco Sport of publicist Thainá Tanizawa and audiovisual producer Marcelo Ordoñez accumulates four functions at the same time: car, home, kitchen and office. Named “Broncasa”, the SUV has already traveled more than 14 thousand kilometers since leaving São Paulo, passed through Ushuaia, in the extreme south of Argentina, and now climbs towards Alaska.

The couple is in El Chaltén, in Argentine Patagonia, with Bariloche as the next stop. The SUV’s nickname came up in a follower’s comment, after one of the couple’s first posts about the car, and became the name of the project.

The adaptation is more artisanal than industrial. The duo removed the rear seats and installed a piece of furniture that works as a wardrobe, safe and compartment for audiovisual production equipment. The area accessed through the trunk became a kitchen, with a stove, refrigerator and utensils.

On the roof are the tent, the solar panels and a battery that powers lighting, refrigerator, electronics and the Starlink antenna — with a full battery, the set gives five days of autonomy away from any outlet, according to Ordoñez. The dog Canela travels in the cabin and won the camp’s alarm post from the couple.

Why the choice was a Bronco Sport

The Ford Bronco Sport uses a 2.0-liter turbocharged gasoline engine with 253 hp and 38,7 kgfm, an eight-speed automatic transmission, 4×4 traction, locking rear differential and seven driving modes. It was this last item that weighed in the decision: neither had experience behind the wheel on snow or ice, and the programs for mud, sand and snow worked as a safety net. Ordoñez says that they all ended up being used in a real situation.

There is a little-remembered side effect of the conversion: with the extra weight of the structure, the investments in sport mode were restricted to the period before the assembly of the house on wheels.

What 14 thousand km revealed

The plan was to arrive in Ushuaia in the summer. The delay pushed the stage to winter – and the roof tent has no heating system. In one of the episodes reported by Tanizawa, the campsite flooded and she ended up working inside the car until the rain stopped.

In this context, the items that gained value were not those from the off-road catalog: it points to the heated seats as a preferred feature, followed by the rear window with independent opening, which avoids lifting the entire trunk lid at each stop.

After snow, ice, gravel, rocks, sand, mud and sub-zero temperatures, the only mechanical problem so far has been a flat tire — and near a city. The report is from the couple and came out on From the Road, Ford’s own content channel.

The trip feeds Soul Let’s Go, an itinerant production company that documents people and territories, not tourist itineraries. In Salta, Argentina, the two began to frequent local bowling alleys to record the musical folklore of the region. After Alaska, the plans include Canada, the United States and, eventually, to ship the Bronco Sport to Europe.