Ranger and Bronco officially returning

Real two-door SUV's suck if you have even one child let alone two or three.

I'd love to have my Bronco back though (I have three kids). It was a Police model with rubber floors, transfer case lever, not buttons and vinyl seats all around. Heavy duty coolers and even a spotlight!

Ford will NEVER make a stripped two-door SUV again. Never.

rslifkin wrote: A Ridgeline would be a perfect truck for a lot of the people who DD an F-150 or similar.

FTFY

ebonyandivory wrote: Ford will NEVER make a stripped two-door SUV again. Never.

I don't think there will be a stripped down anything anymore. There may be a market, but the margins are so very, very thin that there's no point. Those were made in the day that production volume was more important than making money on each vehicle.

The cost of making a car with vinyl vs. carpet is only in the cost of the material- which isn't that much to start with. But the sales price of stripped down cars is way under normal prices. And that makes no sense.

The only area where super basic vehicles makes sense is commercial- where the happiness of the driver is secondary to the happiness of the accountant.

I believe the Ford powers that be have already confirmed that the Ranger will be the global platform with a US-only bumper/fascia/trim package. That makes it body on frame and basically the same size as the new Colorado. Which is the same size as my '69 F100. At any rate, as much as everyone dries about wanting a truly tiny pickup it would never make it in the market. Tiny economy cars are hard to move off the lots, the truck market would be even smaller. Not the market that talks about them, but the market that writes a check for one. Back in the day you had the city delivery fleets to help that but these days that sale goes to the tiny van segment.

alfadriver wrote: Funny the desire for really small trucks. I think. Yes, I see there is a desire, but I don't at all see the desire big enough to have all car companies trying to make small pick ups. A lot of the reason they existed in the first place were keeping CAFE numbers balanced- it allowed the high profit big trucks to be pigs. It's also why the small trucks almost universally were cheap- as there's no way you can make a body on frame truck as cheap as a car (even a body on frame car). IMHO (and it's an opinion, not any fact) trucks like the Ridgeline have shown there's a market for medium unibody trucks- which is what the Ranger is these days (last I checked). The key to selling it is to make enough money doing it- and I suspect that some of the advancements seen in smaller CUV's will show up in the trucks so that they are both clean and economical. Which, to me, suggests a Edge sized pair of vehicles. Which has a pretty decent range of engines, 2.0l Turbo, 3.5 NA, and a 3.5 boosted (at one point). *probably* the larger V6's will be the newer smaller ones. What's really funny about this- IF the base engine turns out to be a 2.0l turbo, it will be more powerful than any engine offered (stock) in a Ranger or a Bronco previously. (A better guess is that both vehicles will be derivatives of the newer RWD explorer, which is ironic, since the explorer was a derivative of the bronco and ranger...)

I really like my ranger sized trucks. Between me and the wife we are on our fourthish one. We went with a ranger instead of the killer deal my dad offered me on his one owner Silverado. I just didn't enjoy parking that massive thing. Plus I have a tiny driveway and want to be able to park two abreast in it, and you can just barely do that with a ranger. My boss has a 2016 Silverado, and it's a pain to get stuff in and out of the bed, and I'm climbing up and down from there all day. Much easier in my ranger.

But I don't buy anything new so what I want is of zero concern (understandably) to the manufactures.

But by the time the supply of decent sized rangers dry up, we will be onto self driving cars, and parking won't be an issue.

joey48442 brings up a good point on new trucks. My son has a new 2017 F150. We wont go into cost (absurdly high), but the thing is almost unusable to me because of the size. It has a step ladder that comes out to get into the bed, and you cant really put things over the side because of the height. Using it to do a Lowes run is more frustrating than helpful.

Then parking it is a problem. I find no joy at all in driving it. But it is nice inside.

Car and Driver and Road & Track are reporting that a Ford exec stated that the new Bronco is going to be 4-door only and based on the Ranger, so basically this:

That's the Ford Everest. It's a Ranger-based body on frame 7-passenger SUV that we don't get in the states.

For the record, Ford currently sells all of these:

Escape:

Edge:

Explorer:

Expedition:

Why bother shoehorning ANOTHER 4-door SUV into an already crowded lineup? They had a chance to do something cool, and they blew it. They are basically building the old body-on-frame Exploder again to compete with the Edge and current unibody Explorer. What's the point?

But if you read back through the thread, one of our members who gets to see stuff years before pictures are taken has said that the Bronco will NOT be a rebadged Everest. I'm hoping for full retro. With the FJ Cruiser leaving the market there is a hole to be filled.

In reply to SilverFleet:

There's the Fiesta based EcoSport below the Escape too.

If the Bronco is a 4 door, it's basically a Toyota 4Runner competitor right?

In reply to racerdave600:

Agreed to a point,as a carpenter I'm in and out of the back a hundred times a day....a lowered truck with bed slider installed is the right way to have your cake and eat it too.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: In reply to mad_machine: What are you talking about, clearly the Wrangler has horrible sales.

it's funny, except for Toyota with the original Land Cruiser and the Land Rover Defender, nobody has ever really tried to compete with Jeep. The Suzuki Samurai came close, but was not exactly in the same league. I think it is time for Ford to give it a go

In reply to mad_machine:

Nissan did, with the Xterra, especially the off-road /Pro4x version. Toyota did with the FJ. Also highly capable. Actually, both are more capable than a run of the mill wrangler, and very close with the Rubicon. Both feature interiors that give you what you need, but not much more. Both are available with manual trans.

But neither count if you mandate the roof come off in order to compete with a jeep wrangler.

I think he means in terms of a removable roof, jeepesque styling kind of vehicle not just in terms of off road capability or intent.

Hopefully the 2.2 and 3.2 diesels make it your way as well. I drive these regularly for work, and they are a good truck. Phenomenally efficient too, especially the 2wd 2.2 diesel.

In reply to TGMF:

Except everything mad_machine threw on the table were direct competitors to the original Wrangler. A two-door, open air, short wheel base, 4WD vehicle capable of off-roading.

The Xterra and FJ Cruiser were basically mid-size off-roaders based on (at the time) current production truck chassis. While yes they were as fully capable as a Wrangler and were available with off-road goodies and manual transmissions, they were never going to be a true competitor because they were not a convertible style Off-Roader. Unfortunately now both of them are no longer in production.

I'd honestly be happy if the new bronco was a rebadged Everest. There's a dearth of off-road capable SUVs in the market right now so it'd be nice to have one more. I mean, the 4Runner is the only one real one left. The rest are too big, too low, too car-based, etc.

That said, I'd be SO EFFING EXCITED if this new bronco was a 2-door that hearkened back to the 90s ones. I know the little ones are cooler but a new of those is a pipe dream.

thatsnowinnebago wrote: I'd honestly be happy if the new bronco was a rebadged Everest. There's a dearth of off-road capable SUVs in the market right now so it'd be nice to have one more. I mean, the 4Runner is the only one real one left. The rest are too big, too low, too car-based, etc. That said, I'd be SO EFFING EXCITED if this new bronco was a 2-door that hearkened back to the 90s ones. I know the little ones are cooler but a new of those is a pipe dream.

That's kind of where I am. I'd take a serious look at a rebadged Everest because it hits most of my needs. I understand that might be the safer option for FoMoCo, especially if they drop one of the other models. How are Explorer sales these days?

OTOH if it's a full size 2 door I might be camping out to greet the first new one on the lot. Honestly, if it's a full size 2 door my wife and I may have a fight over who gets it day to day.

Let's face it, they'll be hard pressed to better the original.

https://richmond.craigslist.org/cto/5954875077.html