AIMS: Ranger arrives with a bang

The big news from the blue oval at this year's Australian International Motor Show in Sydney is the public unveiling of the new Ranger pick-up.

Two nights prior to the media preview day at the Darling Harbour convention centre, Ford held a pyrotechnic extravaganza for the motoring media at Sydney's Cockatoo Island -- replete with a Tap Dogs routine and the new model dropped in (awkwardly) by crane.

Ford Australia president, Marin Burela described the new-generation Ranger at the preview as "the largest single vehicle development program ever undertaken in Australian automotive history for global markets."

Burela was not speaking in terms of development dollars specifically; it's the scope of the T6 project that deserves the adjective 'largest'. No other vehicle previously developed in Australia sells in 180 markets, is built in three plants and involves the tie-up and coordination of as many suppliers -- and that's without even mentioning Mazda's interest, since the T6 platform underpins the Japanese company's new BT-50 also.

Ford execs refuse to talk of future product, but there's speculation that the T6 platform under the Ranger will also provide the base for an SUV down the track and with midlife upgrades and running changes, the 850 to 900 engineers working out of Ford's Broadmeadows and Geelong facilities have a lot of work ahead of them. According to Burela, the T6 is not "a six or seven-year project".

"Australia is the centre for the T6 platform and it will continue to be the centre for design and development for T6 products, so the intellectual property will clearly stay here," he said.

"We haven't pre-determined how long the platform will last, but one thing you don't do in the automotive business -- and that is design and develop platforms that only last six or seven years. You continue to ensure that the platforms are viable, in terms of their ability to expand and grow... that's the key to success."

One of the founding principles of the T6 platform's continuing viability will be new technology of the "plug and play" kind, says Burela -- stuff that can bolt on or screw into a vehicle that has been properly designed in the first instance for a long, serviceable design life.

To accommodate that, Ranger has been developed across continents and time zones, as well as being subjected to a million kilometres of testing -- including in California's Death Valley, where the dust and sand are apparently of a different quality than dust and sand in the hot and dry places in Oz.

The decision to test in Death Valley -- despite the fact that the new Ranger will not be sold in North America -- allows Ford engineers to correlate test data for the Ranger against other vehicles that have been tested in the same location. So Ford can see how its new baby stacks up against vehicles like the F150, for instance. All that said, up to 90 per cent of the testing was carried out in Australia.

The 'One Ford' model rationalisation program hits another home run with the company's decision not to carry the new Ranger in its American and Canadian product portfolios, because the current Ranger in North America is not the same Ranger as sold in Australia and other markets around the world. In essence then, another non-global platform in the Ford family bites the dust.

Australia will source the locally-delivered vehicles from Ford and Mazda's joint-venture plant, Auto Alliance Thailand (AAT) and production is expected to commence there from around the middle of 2011. Final specification is yet to be determined for the Aussie market, but Ford has settled on three engines: a 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel developing 110kW and 375Nm; a 2.5-litre petrol four-cylinder good for 122kW of power and 226Nm of torque, plus a 3.1-litre five-cylinder turbodiesel producing 147kW and 470Nm.

Both the diesel powerplants are marketed as 'Duratorq' engines and derive from Ford's Transit van range. While Ford describes the five-cylinder, which is the 'Puma' engine, as a 3.2-litre unit, its displacement is 3127cc in fact. It will drive through either a six-speed manual transmission or a six-speed automatic and is Euro 5-compliant. In its first application the MT82 manual transmission comes with a shift-indicator as a guide for the driver to operate the vehicle using less fuel. The auto box is coded 6R80 and features sequential shifting, grade control logic and the ability to kick down even in manual selection mode -- providing the driver with emergency acceleration even when the vehicle is in the 'wrong' gear.

Ford claims that the 2.5-litre 'Duratec' petrol engine offers flex-fuel capability, running on up to 100 per cent ethanol or either CNG or LPG. It's a new design featuring all-alloy construction and variable intake cam geometry. The power developed represents a 24 per cent improvement on the power of the 2.5-litre engine powering the current Ranger. Ford hasn't advised whether there'll be an automatic option accompanying this engine. For the moment, all that's known is that the standard transmission is a five-speed manual.

At 3220mm, the wheelbase of the new Ranger is claimed by Ford to be the longest in its class. Certainly the Ranger XLT at the Cockatoo Island preview looked markedly larger and more accommodating than the current model. It seems to be a true rival to the Toyota HiLux for packaging, with a significantly larger rear door for easier access to the rear seats of the dual-cab models -- along with enhanced rear-seat legroom. The vehicle on display was a pre-production Ranger, assembled in Australia from parts supplied by the Thai factory.

4x4 variants of the new model offer a useful 230mm of ground clearance too, and combined with the high mounting of electrical components and the engine air intake in the engine bay, the Ranger is expected to provide decent wading depth, although Ford would not reveal that figure.

Ranger's new chassis is said to be 20 per cent stiffer than the backbone of the current Ranger and is equipped with hydraulic body mounts to ensure comfort and lower NVH. Coil springs at the front are complemented by a rack-and-pinion system, with a new design of leaf-sprung live axle at the rear. 302x32mm vented discs up front -- the largest in the class, according to Ford -- are complemented by drums at the rear, measuring 270x55mm for the 4x2 variants or 295x55mm for the 4x4 vehicles.

Ford decided to stick with leaf springs for the usual reasons: payload and robustness, but also determined that running costs for the owner are lower with leaf springs than with coil springs, since coils invariably need to be located by rubber bushes in Panhard rods and trailing arms. In some of the emerging markets in which the Ranger will be sold, the lower cost of repairing and maintaining a leaf spring set-up provides Ford with a marketing advantage.

Ranger will bring to market relatively new innovations for the pick-up segment, items such as stability control, Emergency Brake Assist, Trailer Sway Control, Adaptive Load Control and Roll-over Mitigation. Those features will put it ahead of many rivals in the segment, along with the styling that seemed to find favour among the journalists attending the Cockatoo Island event, the added safety of side and curtain airbags, plus improved interior design (including up to 20 storage compartments and FG Falcon-style infotainment electronics) and claimed dynamic ability.

All point to a strong rival for Toyota's segment dominator, the HiLux. How will Toyota respond, we wonder, and can Ford maintain the excitement in the face of Volkswagen's Amarok, which will arrive in Australia ahead of the new Ford?

For our full coverage of the Australian International Motor Show in Sydney visit our minisite at carsales.com.au/aims.

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