thought it'd be hilarious to photoshop the Ford Atlas concept into a small SUV and tell everybody: "2016 Ford Bronco!" It was funny, on April Fool's Day. But it keeps burbling back every time somebody's uncle posts it to Facebook with a casually racist, politically-charged caption. And it needs to stop.

For whatever reason, I've had more people ask me about it this week than I have in months... so it seems the issue needs to be addressed.

The first "new Bronco" story meant as a joke, even identified as such at the end. But other sites inevitably picked it up. Whether by fanboy optimism or just poor literacy they took the images, pulled specs out of the sky, and ran with the rumor. Since then websites have popped up devoted to the damn thing.

There is no 2016 Ford Bronco. There is no new Ford Bronco. The Bronco is not coming back. (Yet!) Just kidding, it's definitely not at all.

"New Bronco fever" comes in waves; people will forget about it and then every couple months I'll get a handful of texts and messages asking "think Ford's really gonna do that Bronco?!"

The answer is "no."

Just this morning I had Ford's truck headquarters on the phone, and I could hear eyes rolling on the other end of the line when I brought it up. The company had a prepared statement they'd already fired off about a hundred times:

"While Ford values the iconic Bronco name and history, there are no current plans for a new Bronco."

No plans. They're not working on a new Bronco. They're not even pondering one. Nothing to see here, move along.

And to those who reckon "that's just what they want you to think!" I can promise you Ford would be very happy to start feeding the hype machine as early as possible if there were any semblance of a plan to revive the beloved Bronco.

I know; I like two-door SUVs too. And I won't deny the render looks kinda cool. But please, please stop sharing this.