The Ford Ranger I

July 24th, 2007 by shenron

The Ford Ranger is Ford’s first and current line of compact pickup trucks developed after the end of the Ford Ranchero, and is considered to be one of the better compacts on the market. It began in 1983, four years after the half-a-truck half-a-car Ranchero went out with the dinosaurs, and afterwards the Ford Courier (Mazda B-Series, which is the Ford Ranchero in many other countries) was used for just a short while. There are actually two kinds of Ford Rangers sold, but the one we will be looking at is the North American Ford Ranger, the other is called the Mazda B-Series which goes by Ford Ranger in 130 other countries. The truck comes in the common front engine rear wheel or all wheel drive standard models with all of the common additions you could expect from a car. The first era began in 1983 with its introduction, which focused on efficiency and quality, leading it to have many different transmissions to chose from, with several five speed manuals, a four speed manual, and also two automatics: and three and four speed.

The Ranger was capable of hauling many light loads and small payloads at this time with the engines being the 72 horse 2.0L, and an 86 horse 2.3L - which seems somewhat underpowered today. There was also the 2.2 Diesel which gave it 59 horses - compare that with the Ford model A truck of the 1920’s and 30’s to see that it had 40 horses back then. There was, fortunately, a V6 2.8 that gave the truck 115 horses. After this Ford added one more engine, the same type as the other 2.8L Cologne V6, except just a tiny itsy bit bigger, making it a 2.9 L capable of 140 horses. This engine gave the truck the power it needed to be a much better competitor in the compact truck market and helped it gain some early success in the truck industry.

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