The announcement made earlier this month, Ford has provided preliminary details of the updated Ranger coming to South Africa next year.
Revealed overnight in Australia, which sources its models from Thailand rather than from the Silverton plant outside Pretoria, the biggest change involves the complete removal of the 2.0-litre bi-turbodiesel Panther engine that made 154kW/500Nm.
Indirectly replacing it is the 2.3 EcoBoost petrol that has been the mainstay option in both the North American Ranger and the Middle East where it also powers the Everest.
Once used in the Focus RS and the previous generation Mustang, the unit, which also powers the Ranger’s twin, the Volkswagen Amarok, develops 222kW/452Nm and, as with the bi-turbo, is connected to the General Motors co-developed 10-speed automatic gearbox.
Compared to the States and Middle East though, selecting the EcoBoost only comes with rear-wheel drive as no four-wheel drive can be had.
On the transmission front, the 10-speed’ box is now the sole automatic option as it replaces the six-speed that had been standard on the single turbo Panther unit.
For its part, the single turbo continues, but while its outputs of 125kW/405Nm are unchanged, a timing chain now replaces the timing belt.
Finally, the outputs of 3.0-litre Lion turbodiesel V6 are unchanged at 184kW/600Nm, as is the 292kW/583Nm made by the twin-turbo 3.0 EcoBoost V6 in the Raptor.
On the model front, the single, Super and double cab bodystyles are carried over, but not the Wildtrak X trim level, which now becomes an optional add-on package on the Wildtrak instead of a designated model of its own.
For the single cab, the XL remains the sole trim level, while the Sport grade, available in Australia, debuts on the SuperCab and double cab for the first time.
On the latter, the previous unbadged base model, which featured steel wheels, rear-wheel drive and black bumpers, bows out completely, leaving the XL as the entry-level trim grade.
Still present, but only on XL versions of the single and double cab, is the six-speed manual gearbox.
In one of the biggest moves, availability of the Lion V6 expands to all versions that previously used the bi-turbo, namely the Tremor and, for the first time, on the Wildtrak version of the SuperCab.
What’s more, all Sport models feature the V6 as an option due to the EcoBoost being the new standard powerplant option.
This also applies to the double cab Wildtrak, which keeps the Platinum as its flagship trim grade.
Off the cards completely is the new Wolftrak available in Australia, as well as the hardcore Super Duty.
As it stands, no pricing details have been revealed as these will only come into being once sales start in the first half of next year.
Model range
Single cab
- Ranger 2.0 XL AT
- Ranger 2.0 XL 4×4
- Ranger 2.0 XL 4×4 AT
SuperCab
- Ranger 2.0 XL AT
- Ranger 2.0 XL 4×4 AT
- Ranger 2.0 XLT AT
- Ranger 2.0 XLT 4×4 AT
- Ranger 2.3 EcoBoost Sport AT
- Ranger 3.0 Sport 4×4 AT
- Ranger 3.0 Wildtrak 4×4 AT
Double Cab
- Ranger 2.0 XL
- Ranger 2.0 XL AT
- Ranger 2.0 XL 4×4
- Ranger 2.0 XL 4×4 AT
- Ranger 2.0 XLT AT
- Ranger 2.0 XLT 4×4 AT
- Ranger 2.3 EcoBoost Sport AT
- Ranger 3.0 Sport 4×4 AT
- Ranger 3.0 Tremor 4×4 AT
- Ranger 2.3 EcoBoost Wildtrak AT
- Ranger 3.0 Wildtrak 4×4 AT
- Ranger 3.0 Platinum 4×4 AT
- Ranger Raptor
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