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REVIEW: Ford Ranger Ranger reborn as F-150’s sporty little brother

The Ford F-150 is the most popular thing with wheels in Canada, and even more so for our neighbours down south. Ford sold more than 100,000 trucks up here last year, and an average of one every thirty seconds in the U.S.

The Ford F-150 is the most popular thing with wheels in Canada, and even more so for our neighbours down south.

Ford sold more than 100,000 trucks up here last year, and an average of one every thirty seconds in the U.S.

As such, you might expect Ford to not bother building or selling anything else. The F-Series does everything that people want, from basic work truck to playtime Raptor. There’s nothing more needed.

Until, that is, you take your F-150 out onto a trail or busy parking lot, and realize that a lot of truck for the money is also a Lot Of Truck. And then, if you’re a Ford executive, you take a look around at what’s parked outside every outdoor store or mountain biking park across the country, and see that there are a lot of Toyota Tacomas around.

Enter the reborn Ranger, Ford’s take at turning their former economy pickup into a sport truck for active types. It’ll still tow or haul stuff with most of the capacity of an F-150, but it’s narrower and easier to live with every day.

Judging by the wait times to get one of these things, it looks like the Ranger is going to be as popular as its big brother. Let’s take a look to see if that popularity is deserved.

Design

With a smallish grille and relatively compact dimensions, the Ranger looks handsome without shouting about it. Leave the big-belt-buckle stuff to the wannabe cowboys in their lifted full-size pickups.

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Ford Ranger rear quarter. photo Cindy Goodman, North Shore News

This is a much larger truck than the old Ranger, and sits up quite a bit higher. Two body styles are on offer, with either a two door extended cab, or a proper four-door. I’d imagine the latter will be the one most often chosen.

LED headlights and taillights are an option, as are dress-up items like running boards and chrome accents. The off-road package comes with a steel skid plate that’s functional, and you’re probably going to want the spray-in bedliner if you’re hauling items that would normally dent and chip the bed.

Environment

If the Ranger is smaller on the outside than the F-150, it does a good job of packaging its interior. Because the enormous centre console of the full-size truck is missing, it feels relatively roomy in here.

And it’s not all that truck-like. Drawing from lessons learned in its SUV range, the interior of the higher-trim Ranger is downright luxurious. If you didn’t have to step up to get into it, you’d forget you were in a truck, not a well-equipped car.

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The Ranger is not at all truck-like in the cabin. The interior of the higher-trim trucks is luxurious enough that you could easily forget you’re riding in a pickup, not a sedan. photo Cindy Goodman, North Shore News

Seat room is good, better than the Tacoma’s front and rear. If this is the family truck, with kid-hauling duties on the list, there’s plenty of space for car seats without having your offspring pummel your kidneys. The F-150 is obviously much larger, but the Ranger’s interior is at least as livable as something like the family-oriented Escape crossover.

However, some odd ergonomic annoyances did show up. Getting in and out of the truck, my knee invariably hit the dial for the headlights, which is placed very low. Also, since you’ve got a bed and not a trunk, all the cubbies in the cabin get filled up quickly.

Performance

Most other rivals in the compact pickup segment come with a V-6. The Ranger gets a four-cylinder, 2.3-litre turbocharged engine, and it’s the better for it. Paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission, it makes 270 horsepower at 5,500 r.p.m. and 310 foot-pounds of torque at 3,000 r.p.m.

This gives the Ranger a towing rating of up to 3,400 kg and a cargo capacity of 840 kg, both very respectable. If you’re looking for your small truck to do the work, the Ranger will haul what you need.

This being the North Shore, however, you can expect to see Rangers hustling up and down the ski hills with squadrons of mud-spattered mountain bikes on the rear tailgate. To that end, there’s even better news.

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The Ranger is smaller than the F-150 but the interior still feels roomy and livable. photo Cindy Goodman, North Shore News

Being wider, the F-150 feels a little more stable and planted on the road – the Ranger leans over a little in the corners. However, the ride quality for the Ranger, front and rear, is very good – outstanding by pickup truck standards.

With all that low-end torque on tap, the Ranger whistles up to speed very quickly, and is always ready to pass should you need to get around a truck on your way up the Sea-to-Sky. It’s much more responsive to drive than the Tacoma, and Ford seems to have improved the programming of its 10-speed transmission.

The gearbox changes down quickly, which it needs to do as the top three gears are basically all overdrives. Happily, the high gearing and turbo torque makes for less pain at the pump.

Overall handling can best be described as confident. The Ranger isn’t sporty on the tarmac, but it’s not very pickup like, with only the occasional judder from the rear axle if you hit a bump in the corner. Like the interior, the drive is very livable.

Once you get it out on a forest service road, the Ranger really comes into its element. Off-road models come with proper four-wheel drive and hill-descent control, and there’s even a selectable terrain management system. What really impressed was the ability of the suspension to soak up our typically washboarded gravel roads.

Features

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Ford Ranger box. photo Cindy Goodman, North Shore News

The basic Ranger XL starts at $28,569, and comes with steel wheels and just the essentials. The top-spec Lariat tester I had crept right up to $49,509 with options like the $1,400 FX4 off-road package. If you don’t need all the bells and whistles, it’s possible to aim for a midrange Ranger that costs about as much as a well-equipped family sedan.

Fuel economy results are good, thanks to that four-cylinder turbo. Official figures are 11.8 litres/100 kilometres in the city and 9.8 l/100 km on the highway. The Ranger did particularly well on the highway, and happily runs on regular grade fuel.

Green light

Reasonable footprint; plenty of torque; great ride and handling on dirt or tarmac.

Stop sign

Options get pricey; no lockable exterior storage; some interior foibles.

The checkered flag

A right-sized pickup truck that works for day-to-day use and can play hard on the weekends.

Competitor

Toyota Tacoma ($31,835): Pricier than the Ranger, the Tacoma is nonetheless a favourite for its excellent resale and solid reliability. Even beat-up examples still fetch top dollar, and the truck has a huge fan base.

The problem is that Toyota didn’t want to upset that fan base, so the current model isn’t too different from the version that went on sale nearly 15 years ago. The cabin can be a bit cramped, and the V-6 is a little low on torque.

The Ranger is a fresher take, and will probably be both less expensive and have better financing options. With the Tacoma, whatever you spend on it, you’ll likely get most of that back. In the end, best to go with which one you prefer driving.

mcaleeronwheels@gmail.com