You Can Buy a $16,000 Portal-Axle Kit For Your Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is one of the most capable off-roaders sold by any automaker. Order one with the Sasquatch Package, and you get 35-inch tires from the factory. But, what if you want to make your Bronco unstoppable? You'll need more than a simple lift—you need portal axles. Ukranian company Werewolf Tech has a new portal-axle kit for the Bronco, and it carries the steep price tag of $16,000.
As a brief refresher, portal axles are designed to raise both the body and drivetrain of a vehicle. A gearset at each wheelhub takes power down vertically from the axle to the wheel. They're quite complicated to make, which is why A) you don't see them in many production vehicles, and B) these cost $16,000. The only production civilian vehicle on sale today with portal axles is the Mercedes-AMG G63 4x4 Squared, while perhaps the best known user of this tech is the Humvee and related civilian Hummer H1.
The advantage over a simple lift kit is huge. By essentially raising the axles along with the body, ground clearance gets a massive boost—in the case of Werewolf Tech's kit, 5.1 inches. Fit one of these kits to a Bronco Wildtrak and you'll have 16.6 inches of ground clearance. That beats even the air-sprung GMC Hummer, which offers a maximum of 15.9 inches of clearance in its "Extract" mode.
Werewolf Tech also says the axles reduce the overall gear ratio of the Bronco by 35 percent, further helping with off-road ability. The company recommends using 38-inch tires and warranties the kit for 50,000 km (31,000 miles). We've reached out to the company to determine if these axles can be exported to the U.S.
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