Recently it has been shown that for strong upstream magnetic field stationary three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) bow shock flows exhibit a complex double-front shock topology with particular segments of the shock fronts being of the intermediate MHD shock type. The large-scale stability of this new bow shock topology is investigated. It is found that large-amplitude perturbations may cause the disintegration of the intermediate shocks—which are indeed known to be unstable against perturbations with integrated amplitudes above critical values— but that in the driven bow shock problem there are always shock front segments where intermediate shocks are reformed dynamically, resulting in the reappearance of the new double-front topology. This shows that the new bow shock topology, and shock segments of intermediate type in general, may be found in MHD plasma flows even when there are large-amplitude perturbations. ©2000 American Institute of Physics.