US turns back on Ranger

Ford sells the Ranger across 180 countries. As a nameplate, Ranger is a powerful brand within itself and an example of America's and Ford's industrial influence on a planetary scale. The only thing more American than apple pie and baseball is Ronald McDonald driving a Ranger while drinking a Coke.

There's a glitch though in that scenario. Americans cannot buy this new Ranger. Walk into a Ford showroom in the pickup-loving state of Texas and they'll point you south to Mexico where you can. 

By the way, Mexican Coke tastes better too, made with cane sugar.

It is simply strange that Ford refuses to offer a mid-size pickup alongside its full-size F-Series. At one time, you could buy a Ranger in the US, but Ford pulled the plug on USA production and sales in 2011. The US Ranger suffered from engineering neglect. It was based on the Explorer, was poorly built, didn't provide much in occupant protection, burned a lot of fuel and was lazy in the engine bay.

Whereas in Asia, engineering of Ranger was Mazda's responsibility, and the Japanese created a great mid-size pickup (badged BT-50 and Ranger) in 2011 made even better with Ford's Puma diesel engines designed in Europe and Ranger's interior and exterior design done in Australia.

Americans are pissed off they can't buy a Ranger, and it stings even more that General Motors reintroduced Colorado in the US this year with a trio of heady engines including a 2.8-litre turbo-diesel.

At the reveal of the new aluminium-bodied F-Series, we asked Mark Fields why no Ranger for the USA? After all, it fits within the context of One Ford and leveraging global resources to offer better products to Ford customers worldwide. One Ford is the corporate philosophy that brought the brilliant Europe-developed Fiesta and Focus to the US too.

Fields' explanation was exceptionally light on reasons and heavy on corporate speak: "We considered Ranger but the traditional Ranger customer in the US is looking for low cost transportation, and we cannot offer Ranger in the US at the price point those customers want."

There's a hint of validity there when new F-150 stickers at around $25,000. More to the point, Fields will protect F-Series sales and its 35-year legacy as the best-selling pickup in America. Keeping Ranger out of the US is an easy decision if it means keeping F-Series at number one.

But there's a new generation of truck buyer in the US who demands Ranger and wants its smaller size, dynamic handling and potent turbo-diesel engine producing fat torque numbers and excellent fuel efficiency. They may want the Blue Oval, but they're now willing to buy Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon.

What's worse is Mazda North America Operations won't even consider offering BT-50 in the US. 

Sales of Mazda in the US with 15 times the population barely exceeded sales of Mazda in Australia. Anticipated volume of BT-50 in the US may be only 30,000-40,000 pickups, but BT-50 would fill a huge hole in its American product range. The current BT-50 design ain't pretty and falling sales in Asia prove it. Design can be fixed though, especially when it has good bones.

Ranger and BT-50 are good pickups. If either Ford or Mazda listens closely to its customers as they claim they are, they'll soon get the message.