After loads of teasers, Ford has announced that its next-generation Ranger will be unveiled on 24 November.
Apart from a few photos showing off the new shape, as well as the promise that it will be the “toughest, smartest, most versatile, and most capable Ranger yet”, there are very few known facts about this bakkie.
Ford South Africa has confirmed that it will “launch in 2022”, but not which quarter this will be.
Motor1 reported that this new Ranger is rumoured to only go on sale in the United States in July 2023, being launched in major markets like Thailand and Australia first.
If this is true, we expect the next-gen Ranger to go on sale locally late in 2022, as South Africa is one of the model’s biggest markets – and will also be building it here.
Rumours
It is rumoured that the design of the next-generation Ford Ranger was nearing finality in 2019.
Australian car-site WhichCar published leaked photos of an unconfirmed bakkie at the time, which bears a striking resemblance to the next-gen Ranger.
The bakkie in these leaked photos featured C-shaped headlights and a rectangular grille with a crossbar – all of which can be seen on the official teaser images that were provided by Ford in 2021.
This year, photos taken in Thailand of the new Ranger in testing – published on the ranger6g forum – verified that the leaked 2019 images offered quite an accurate depiction of what’s to come.
In these recent photos, the front and flanks of the next-gen Ranger are visible through the “car camouflage” – with the models on test wearing three different grille designs.
It is expected that these grilles will denote the various specification grades. However, it is also possible that Ford has not yet chosen the final design and are still testing the performance of the different front ends.
Along the flanks, you can see that the new Ranger features more sculpted sides, a sidestep which rivals that of the current Ranger Raptor, an extended sports hoop like the Ranger FX4, and a range of new wheel designs – while certain models also have integrated roof rails.
It is plausible that the look of the next-gen Ranger was inspired by the recently-unveiled Ford Maverick hybrid bakkie. However, if leaked images from 2019 were accurate, it might be the other way around.
At the rear, the images show that the new Ranger will feature redesigned LED lights and a shark fin antenna.
The bakkie is also expected to feature a large vertical touchscreen and a fully-digital driver’s display, as well as the latest SYNC4 infotainment system.
In the power department, Ford has said little of this new Ranger – except that it boasts “superior off-road credentials”.
According to a report by Stuff, a range of powertrain options will be available; with a 2.0-litre, bi-turbo, diesel engine on offer, as found in the current line-up.
North American models will likely get a 3.0-litre, V6 engine, too, while a plug-in hybrid derivative is also rumoured to be in the works.
As with the current Ranger, the next-gen bakkie is expected to be available in either two-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive configurations, as well as multiple body styles.
Testing
Ford has gone to great lengths in testing the new Ranger.
Before settling on a design, the company conducted over 5,000 interviews with bakkie owners to find out what they like and look for in these utilitarian vehicles.
To make sure this Ranger lives up to expectations, the company performed the equivalent of 10,000km of desert driving, 625,000km of “rugged off-road durability testing”, and over 1,250,000km of customer driving.
“Even before the first prototypes hit the road for testing, Ford’s engineers subjected [the] next-gen Ranger to thousands of hours of computer simulations and thousands more of real-world simulations in labs, covering everything from aerodynamics to component and structure durability,” said Ford.
“Some of these tests are deemed too rigorous for humans to endure, so computer simulations and robotics are used to replace humans in cases like the extreme ‘squeak and rattle’ rig where the pickup’s suspension and whole body is exposed to punishing test cycles that are repeated 24/7.”
The new Ranger will be one of the most important bakkies for Ford, as not only is it its best-selling local model, it will also spawn the next Everest SUV, as well as be the base upon which the new VW Amarok is built as part of an agreement between Ford and VW.
Next-gen Ford Ranger
Keyword: Next-gen Ford Ranger – Everything we know so far