2019 Ford Ranger Reveal

LIKE2BUILD wrote:

I was really confused when Ford decided to ditch the Ranger and go all-in with only F150 and larger. Really? It seemed the small truck market still has plenty of buyers and to get out of that segment was leaving money on the table.

Oh well, the Ranger is back now and looks to be a pretty capable truck.

KJ

Ford never gave an official statement but my understanding is they found a lot of buyers were comparing the Ranger to the F150 as the "small" pickups got ever closer in size to the 1/2ton. The result was they were cannibalizing the more profitable F150 sales.

Only after the fact did they realize they ticked off some of the Ranger fans and lost sales to rival brands with their "small" pickups.

Did the recent CAFE rules change the truck vs car designation? Forever small pickups were the compliance vehicles as "trucks" (including most SUV's) were considered separately from "cars". Small 4cycl pickups were the CAFE compliance vehicle. My first S15 got 27mpg but the last small pickup (a dakota) got 17mpg and we regretted not just moving up to a 1/2 ton as the price difference was negligible and the MPG roughly the same.