TBT: How Eddie Bauer Helped Make Ford SUVs a Luxury Item

Jul 11, 2024
<2 MIN READ
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Ford began a popular partnership with outdoors outfitter Eddie Bauer in 1983 that spanned more than 20 years and 1.5 million vehicles.

As SUV sales boomed in the 1990s and 2000s, one brand’s name became synonymous with Explorer and Expedition: outdoors outfitter Eddie Bauer. The long-running partnership kicked off 40 years ago with the retailer’s premium tag first applied to Bronco II. 

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Bronco II was the first Ford vehicle to bear the Eddie Bauer script.

Eddie Bauer-edition vehicles came to be known for their unique luxury interiors and exterior styling cues, as well as the badging featuring the clothier’s script logo. Buyers would also receive Eddie Bauer merchandise with their vehicle purchase. 

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“Eddie Bauer Bronco II – it’s a brand-new kick in survival gear!” read a 1984 Bronco II advertisement.

Edsel Ford II, then the marketing plans manager for the Ford Division, established the relationship between the two longtime brands in 1983. While Ford and other automakers had partnered with apparel brands prior to the Eddie Bauer relationship, this was a natural fit, as the Eddie Bauer-edition Fords conveyed a casual, carefree lifestyle inspired by the great outdoors.

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The Eddie Bauer-branded badging made the Seattle-based brand synonymous with Explorers and Expeditions of the 1990s and 2000s.

“It’s almost uncanny how well-matched Ford and Eddie Bauer are,” Ford Division Marketing Communications Manager Jan Klug said in a 1999 press release. “Both companies have reputations built on an uncompromising commitment to quality, durability, and customer satisfaction. For our customers, this means the irresistible combination of Ford’s ‘go-anywhere’ capability and Eddie Bauer’s rugged style.”

Eddie meets Explorer

The first Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer edition was unveiled in 1991, with the Expedition being added at the time of the large SUV’s introduction in 1996. While Explorer was outselling competitors by a 2-to-1 ratio by 1998, the Eddie Bauer model was more popular with Expedition customers – with Ford selling nearly 99,000 of the premium-laden Expeditions that year. 

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The Eddie Bauer option was more popular with Expedition buyers of the late 1990s than those of the Explorer.

Ford sold 300,000 of the models between 1997 and 1999, when the company marked production of the one millionth Eddie Bauer-branded vehicle 25 years ago, in June of 1999. Ford’s St. Louis Assembly Plant, where 221,398 Explorers had been built a year earlier, was transformed into a scene from the Pacific Northwest resembling the pages of the outfitter’s catalogs. Trees and large rocks were accompanied by a projection of Washington state’s Olympia Mountains. Employees were served biscotti and coffee and representatives from Ford, the UAW, and Eddie Bauer were on hand.

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The luxury appointments of the Eddie Bauer trim series were not limited to SUVs and pickups. The Ford Aerostar was one of the first vehicles to wear the badge.

In addition to the amenities in Eddie Bauer-branded vehicles offered and the boost in cachet the name carried, Ford also received additional exposure from the outfitter, which displayed Ford vehicles in its stores and also featured them in its catalog photography.

End of the line

The Ford-Eddie Bauer relationship continued until 2010 with more than 1.5 million of the limited-edition vehicles reportedly being sold. While the collaboration is best remembered for the abundance of Explorers and Expeditions that hit the market some 25 years ago, the trim series was also offered on Bronco, F-Series, Excursion, and the Aerostar minivan, and later on the Taurus X crossover.

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