|
Industry reports are essentially confirming what has been rumored and suspected for quite some time. The North American Ford Ranger is nearing the end of its life, at least in its current form. Compact truck sales have dropped off considerably in the last several years, and for a company reporting multi-billion dollar losses for the last few years, declining sales are not an encouraging sign for a model.
In the time the F-150 has gone through two ground-up re-designs, the Ranger has soldiered on with a few trim, mechanical, and detail changes, but the basic hardware and chassis has remained the same for nearly 15 years. While there are supposedly many within Ford lobbying to kill the Ranger outright, others have said it represents an important entry-level vehicle for buyers that may some day trade up to the lucrative F-150.
Under Alan Mulally's leadership, a lot of scenarios that were previously "off-the-table" are being re-considered. One such scenario is either importing the Asian-Pacific Ranger model (show below), or bringing the tooling over, and assembling a version of that model in North America. The reason importing the Thailand-built Ranger is somewhat unattractive is the current 25-percent tariff on imported pickup, which would make profit margins for Ford slim, even taking the relatively cheap Thai factory labor into account.
 However, the Asian Ranger is a much more modern design than the current North American model, and offers a range of gasoline and turbo-diesel engines that would make it competitive in this era of $3.00+ fuel. Between the 3.0 turbodiesel and the 3.5 Duratec V-6, Ford could offer competitive powertrains.
However, a nicely-equipped Ranger could rival an F-150 in cost, further muddling the proposition of continuing to offer the compact truck.
MT's Take: It will be a sad day for Mini Truckers when the Ranger passes on to the great custom shop in the sky. But business is business, and if Ford can't make money on it, they don't have much of a choice. We like the Asian Ranger model, and hope Ford imports it, or brings the tooling over and assembles it here. Otherwise, we may be forced to start notching & body-dropping Mahindras or whatever the newest Mini Truck is we can get our hands on.
|