Current Ford Ranger production to end this month, Everest in May

Production of the current Ford Ranger will end next month, drawing to a close 11 years and more than 350,000 examples sold in Australia across a generation.

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The current-generation Ford Ranger ute will bring its 11-year model run to an end next month, ahead of an all-new model due in mid-2022 – with the related Ford Everest four-wheel-drive to follow suit two months later.

The final examples of the current Ford Ranger are due roll off the Thailand production line in March 2022 – by which point more than 350,000 examples will have been sold in Australia, since it arrived in local Ford showrooms in October 2011.

Order books have closed, a Ford Australia spokesperson confirmed to Drive, with the orders placed so far to be the last current-generation Rangers to be manufactured.

The current Ford Ranger (codenamed ‘P375’, or PX) will be succeeded by a brand-new model (codenamed ‘P703’), with redesigned sheetmetal, a high-tech interior, more technology, and the much-anticipated option of V6 turbo diesel power, with a twin-turbo petrol V6-powered Raptor flagship to follow.

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Production of the current Ranger’s seven-seat SUV sibling, the Ford Everest 4WD, will end in May – with dealers said to still be accepting orders for this vehicle, AWAITING CONFIRMATION mere days from the debut of the next-generation Everest on March 1.

Between the start of 2012 and the end of January 2022, a total of 352,916 Ford Ranger utes have been reported as sold – with sales increasing eight out of its 10 full years on sale – and 35,366 Ford Everest SUVs since its 2015 launch.

The Ford Ranger has been Australia’s second best-selling ute each year since 2014, and while it is yet to surpass the top-selling Toyota HiLux, it has closed the gap from 22,549 in 2012, to 13,870 in 2014, and just 2522 in 2021.

Launched in 2011, the ‘PX’ Ranger – twinned with the then-new Mazda BT-50, continuing a long partnership between Ford and Mazda – debuted a new ‘T6’ architecture, and offered more space and technology than the vehicle it replaced.

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The Ranger’s first facelift arrived in 2015 – known as the ‘PX II’, or ‘PX MkII’ – to coincide with the Everest SUV’s launch, with a second facelift for the Ranger (PX MkIII) following in 2019, adding a high-performance Ranger Raptor variant for the first time.

Together, the Ford Ranger and Everest accounted for just over 82 per cent of the 71,380 vehicles Ford vehicles reported as sold in 2021, and if their own brand would be Australia’s seventh biggest-selling car maker last year.

A new Ford Ranger is due to launch in Australia in mid-2022 – with a longer wheelbase, wider wheel track, new technology and the option of diesel V6 power – followed by the next-generation Ranger Raptor and Everest, both expected in the second half of 2022.

Whereas its predecessor was twinned with the Mazda BT-50, the new Ranger will ditch long-time partner Mazda in favour of Germany’s Volkswagen, lending its underpinnings to the next Amarok.

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