Ford patent filings show removable doors, possibly for Bronco

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Look, I'm just as excited as you are about the advent of a new off-road-ready Ford Bronco, so when I saw these Ford patent filings for removable doors, which Motor Trend dug up on Thursday, I naturally got pretty excited.

While the filings don't make specific mention of the Bronco, we did learn recently that during a dealer's meeting, Ford showed its long-awaited new SUV with removable doors and a removable hard top. Combine that with the distinctly Bronco-ish tube-door vibe that the patent drawings project and I'm betting that the two are related.

Based on the drawings, it looks like the inner crash structure of the vehicle's doors is independent of the inner and outer skins of the door itself. This means that an owner could remove the door as a unit, unbolt the internal structure that's attached to the hinges and reattach that to the vehicle.

Of course, in practical terms, we know very little about the new Bronco and these patent filings depict something more truck-like than we'd imagine the Bronco will look, but it's still fun to speculate -- even if most patent filings don't end up going into production.

A Ford spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny that the patent filing had anything to do with Bronco, saying, "We submit patents on new inventions as a normal course of business, but they aren't necessarily an indication of new business or product plans."