It's Official - The Ranger & Bronco are Back

[fred fdunfordcomcastnet]

I was 99% sure but wouldn't speculate.



Michigan Assembly: $700 million investment with a new product to be added in 2018, expected to be the Ford Ranger, followed by the revival of the Ford Bronco SUV by 2020. The stamping plant will continue to support the Ford Focus and C-Max families of vehicles until they are moved elsewhere in 2018.

 

[Mark Stadnicki]

I believe the Ranger will come back and will seriously look at one for my ST replacement.



I highly doubt the Bronco will come back as a stand alone truck unless it's a package for the F150 like a pre-runner Raptor.

 

[blksn8k]

Best guess is the Bronco will share its chassis with the Ranger just like the current Everest does. If both vehicles are going to be built on the same production line why would one have a chassis based on an entirely different vehicle? The Bronco might come as a two-door SUV to appease the historians but more likely will be a rebadged four-door Everest. I doubt Ford would invest in a completely different body for a low volume vehicle just to make two-door Bronco fans happy. Or they might make it a two-door to help differentiate it from the less woods ready unibody Explorer. That might make sense if they intend to aim it at the Jeep crowd.

 

[fred fdunfordcomcastnet]

The Bronco will definitely be the same platform as the Ranger. And, I also suspect the target is to compete against the Jeep

 

[Gavin Allan]

"..less woods ready..."



Nice way of saying "Soccer mom vehicle"



I'm betting:

 

[Dre L]

The Sport Trac was meant as a "Soccer Mom Vehicle"... maybe Ford should continue this failed strategy.

 

[Gavin Allan]

"Soccer Mom Vehicles" don't have real 4WD systems, full steel frames, and V8 engines!

 

[Ruth M]

About time, the ranger was a good seller in Canada but not in the US that's why they stopped making them, according to a source at a ford dealership here.

 

[TrainTrac]

About time, the ranger was a good seller in Canada but not in the US that's why they stopped making them, according to a source at a ford dealership here.

That's bull-squeeze. The Ranger was the best-selling small truck for many years. The only reason sales dropped off was because Ford basically abandoned the Ranger. They decided that they could make more $$$ off of the F150, so they poured all of their development and advertising resources into the F150. After 1996, the Ranger received virtually no major updates other than front and rear end changes. So it's no wonder that sales dropped off, because the Ranger appeared stale and stagnant instead of new to the buying public.



And once Ford came out with the Eco-Boost engines for the F150, they really began to push the larger truck, because they thought the consumer only wanted better MPG and didn't care about a smaller truck if they could get an F150 with the same or better fuel economy than the Ranger.



But I think Ford has finally come back around after seeing how well the GM and Toyota mid-size trucks have been selling over the last few years. So hopefully we'll see them get back into the mid-size truck market soon.