So how would a Ranger Sport Trac siphon sales from the F-150? Sport Tracs never were a full size pickup, and there small pickup bed is enough to make it non threatening. The Bronco platform is not the same as the old ranger/explorer platform used on the previous Sport Trac. The ranger platform really is the closest if not identical to the previous platforms. However, I understand that may not be important with Ford.
Even if you are a loyal Ford customer it is highly unlikely that you are going to buy both a Ranger and an F-150 at the same time. If you buy a Ranger you're not likely to buy an F-150 and vice versa. As a previous owner of several Rangers and a gen 2 Sport Trac it's still hard to argue with the statement that if not for the F-150 Ford probably wouldn't exist as an independent company today.
If you look at the history of the Ranger it seems pretty obvious that Ford has always held it back from being too good. For example, why would they have never in the entire history of the compact Ranger since 1983 offered the same drive train in the Ranger as the F-150? They could have offered the 2.7L EcoBoost in 2019 but didn't. The 2019 Ranger was a stop-gap effort by Ford. They spent years converting an outdated platform they had been selling everywhere but here since 2010 and only managed to do a half-assed job at best because I suspect they didn't want to be in that market anyway.
The current Ranger T6 platform was originally designed before 2010 in Australia for markets where the F-150 was not available. And by the way, the current Ranger uses a similar body on frame platform as the yet to be released US built "big" Bronco which is completely different than the unibody C2 Escape platform under the Mexican built 2021 Bronco Sport and 2022 Maverick pickup and also completely different from the old US Ranger that was discontinued in 2011.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Ford has two plants building F-150s and selling them at a higher profit margin than the Ranger (although when you look at the price of the Ranger I'm not so sure how true that statement really is). There is only one Ranger plant in the US and it has to be able to supply not only Rangers but now "big" Broncos as well. They have no intention of selling more Rangers than they can build, especially when they need to keep those two F-150 plants running full tilt. And now that the Bronco is coming online there will be even less emphasis on the Ranger because they will want that plant pumping out higher content and thus higher profit margin Broncos, not Rangers.
Everyone assumes the next gen Ranger will get the 2.7L EcoBoost only because the Bronco will have it and they are built on the same platform in the same plant. I'll believe that when I see it.
And when you throw the Mexican built 2022 Maverick pickup into the mix that spells an even bleaker future for the Ranger in North America. The Ranger is the red-headed stepchild that Ford doesn't need or want to sell here.
Ford has also said they intend to make "Bronco" a separate brand similar to what Fiat has done with Jeep and Ram which makes me wonder if a Bronco pickup wouldn't make more sense for the North American market than a new generation Ranger. If you need something with more capability and aren't worried about size...buy an F-Series. If you want something even smaller and less expensive and don't need as much capability...buy a Maverick. The mid-size Ranger could return to its spartan rest of world only status and we could get a better equipped Bronco pickup instead. And yes, they could even call it the Bronco Sport Trac.
