COTY 2016 Best Tradie Vehicle: Ford Ranger
Top workhorse award in carsales.com.au's 2016 Car of the Year goes to Ford's Aussie-designed RangerFord's latest Ranger barely puts a foot wrong, and in today's high-tech car world that's no mean feat.
With a strong turbo-diesel engine, a well-sorted chassis and more technology than any other vehicle in its class, it's more than deserving of its place as a finalist in 2016 Carsales Car of the Year.
Chosen by our eight judges as the Best Tradie Vehicle of 2016, the Ranger brings car-like handling dynamics to what was once a very no-frills sector of the market, while offering big towing capacities and loads of practicality for swallowing loads in the tray or shifting bodies in the cab.
It's ironic that the Ranger is capable of steering, accelerating and braking without any input from the driver too, because it's one of the best handling utes there is. Super-light steering and a reversing camera make the big one-tonner easier to park than it should be.
Packaged with an impressive array of safety equipment, the car is comfortable on the road, well-equipped and delivers strong value-for-money as a weekday workhorse that can double as a lifestyle machine on weekends.
It's by no mean perfect – no cars are – with it large size making it unwieldy in tight spots and a lack or rear air-vents an issue in summer for back-seat occupants. Overall, however, judges were surprised at just how capable the car was across a range of dynamic tests.
Designed and engineered in Australia for global markets, the Ford Ranger shows just how much research and development talent there is in the country, as -- for the second year running -- the ute is simply without peer in its class.
The carsales.com.au Car of the Year winners are:
2016 carsales.com.au Car of the Year category winners:
Best First Car: Skoda Fabia
Best City Car: Audi A3 Sportback e-tron
Best Family Car Under $30K: Skoda Octavia
Best Family Car Over $30K: Mazda6
Best Green Car: BMW i3 ReX
Best Offroad 4x4: Ford Ranger
Best Performance Car Under $100K: Ford Focus RS
Best Performance Car Over $100K: Porsche 911 Carrera S
Best Prestige Car Under $100K: Audi A4
Best Prestige Car Over $100K: Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Best SUV Under $50K: Mazda CX-9
Best SUV Over $50K: Audi Q7
Best Tradie vehicle: Ford Ranger
Related reading:
>> >> >> Ford Ranger 2015 review
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