Ford Australia to lead Volkswagen joint project

Ford Australia will lead the design project to create the next generation Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok. But unlike the current T6 generation of mid-sized truck which is sold in Australia as Ranger and Everest, the next gen vehicle’s platform will be designed and developed in the USA.

The US and German companies announced on January 15 they would explore “potential collaboration on electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and mobility services.” The first project to be greenlighted is the Amarok/Ranger pairing.

The news is a fillip for Ford’s local design operation but will translate to a number of engineering redundancies as the Blue Oval consolidates its global pick-up production to one, scalable platform.

The additional take-out is that it appears the next generation Ranger and F-Series models will share a common architecture, perhaps clearing the way for the full-size Ford icon to be built ex-factory in right-hand drive for the first time.

In a press release issued this afternoon, Ford Australia stated: “Ford Motor Company is assigning new design work to Ford Australia to support global projects as the Company continues to drive improvements to its global Product Development (PD) operations.

“The Australian-based Asia Pacific Product Development Centre will take on additional global PD projects, boosting local expertise in advanced electrical engineering, interior and exterior automotive design and engineering, and feature integration,” Ford stated.

Although Ford will bolster some aspects of its design and engineering resources, redundancies will hit powertrain and platform development areas.

Stated Ford: “Ford is revamping its global Product Development operations to better meet local market needs and improve efficiency and quality, which includes a move to five modular and flexible architectures.

“As part of those changes, elements of the Ranger platform will integrate with Ford’s single, global body on frame flexible architecture, which will be led out of the United States.

“Certain Powertrain commodities and systems currently engineered in Australia will also move to other Powertrain sites globally, enabling complexity reduction and scale efficiencies.”

A Ford spokesperson told carsales the changes will result in around 130 redundancies – approximately 40 salaried positions and 90 “hourly” heads. Ford stated: “There will be changes in the composition of the local workforce, to be achieved through a mix of new hires, redeployments and separations.”

Ford Australia would not, however, comment on the potential of the next generation platform to deliver right-hand-drive versions of the F-Series. Instead, the local arm characterised the alignment as “co-development of the mid and full-sized pick-ups on one platform”.

Ford also announced this week that it is developing a small pick-up platform based on C-segment (small car) monocoque architecture.