Ford to go it alone on Ranger?

The next generation Ford Ranger is likely to be a stand-alone blue oval development program that continues to be headquartered in Australia.

That's the message emerging from a recent realignment of global automotive partnerships developing future pick-up trucks, and from public comments made by Ford Australia president Graeme Whickman.

Commenting in the wake of Ford's confirmed split with Mazda – which currently spins the BT-50 off the Ranger's T6 architecture – and the Japanese company's new partnership with Isuzu, Whickman said:

"It's [T6] a great investment story in terms of what we are doing and the people, so it's not going away," Whickman said.

"We don't talk about future programs in general but the program is important to us and it's important enough that we will be doing it by ourselves. I can't really say much more."

Whickman's statement was backed up by motoring.com.au sources that indicated development work on the new generation Ranger – and therefore the Everest wagon that spins from it – had already begun in Australia.

"The vehicle is doing very well and it's engineered right in this country, and I don't see why that would change," Whickman added when pressed about his initial statement.

But over two different interviews with motoring.com.au Whickman refused to explain his initial statements much further, invoking the old 'we don't talk about future product' credo, a line that car manufacturers never have any compunction abandoning when it suits them.

Retention of the mid-size pick-up truck program into a new generation is a vital win for Ford's Victorian-based research and development facilities, which continues on after the closure of the company's local manufacturing facilities in October and the death of Falcon and Territory.

The Ranger has emerged as Ford Australia's most popular model in recent years and is a cornerstone of a revival that now has the company's sales running 16.4 per cent ahead of 2015.

Year to date, 14,121 4x2 and 4x4 Rangers have been registered according to VFACTS, compared to 10,772 in the same period of 2015. The Ranger went through a significant mid-life update in 2015, while the Everest also launched last year.

The Everest range is now expanding into rear-wheel drive and five seat variants as Ford unpacks its future SUV strategy.

Whickman's reticence to expand on the future of Ranger in terms of how it is developed, who develops it and where it is developed is understandable considering he has no direct managerial link to local R&D, which is part of global Ford operations.

"It's a global decision," he confirmed. "We are one market, we happen to be one of the bigger markets that takes Ranger, so we are one of the more important voices, but ours is fundamentally around the type of product, the product need, the customer requirement... that sort of thing.

"Regardless of where it comes from it's been designed for a set of customers and the Australian customers given how many we sell in this country are significantly high importance so you would expect our efforts would be tailored around Australian needs and wants in this market at a very high level.

"So it's less about who's designing it and who's manufacturing it – it's more about 'have we got the right product?' And I think we do right now, given what we're seeing in the market."

Standing alone with Ranger is a bold move considering the tangled web of alliances various automotive manufacturers have established to build pick-up trucks. Marton Pettendy has detailed those links elsewhere.

Among all the activity that story details, only Ford and General Motors – which was formerly aligned with Isuzu – don't currently have publicly-known co-operation agreements for their pick-up programs, although GM's Chinese partner SAIC brand is developing a truck under the LDV brand, and a Thai facility in which to build it.

However, GM has talked about moving the Colorado and the Trailblazer (formerly Colorado7) wagon significantly up-market. Whether that coalesces with SAIC's plans remains to be seen.