Earlier last year Ford’s global markets President Jim Farley confirmed that the company was working on a new compact pick-up truck that would slot beneath the Ranger, and now some new details are starting to emerge.
For starters, bakkie fans can look forward to a rugged design.
MotorTrend
says its sources have indicated that the newcomer will be “anything but cute”, with styling inspiration likely coming from both the Ranger and the upcoming Bronco Sport SUV.
The latter is not to be confused with the actual Bronco, which will be a more rugged Wrangler-like SUV based on the Ford Ranger. The Bronco Sport will instead use Ford’s compact front-wheel-drive architecture that underpins the new Focus and Kuga models that have not been launched in South Africa. This means it will also be fairly closely related to the upcoming compact pick-up and the two could even be built in the same Mexican factory, MT reports.
It’s practically certain that the vehicle will be offered as a double cab, but it’s not yet clear whether single and extended cab variants will form part of the mix.
According to the aforementioned US publication, the baby bakkie will also likely share its two turbopetrol engines with the Bronco Sport, these being a 134kW 1.5-litre three-cylinder and 186kW 2-litre four-cylinder.
Being a unibody bakkie, there won’t be a traditional 4x4 system with low-range, although range-toppers will almost certainly offer the option of permanent all-wheel-drive.
It’s too early to say whether the newcomer will ever reach South Africa, but it would be a travesty if it didn’t. The vehicle is likely to be primarily aimed at South American markets, where it will go up against the Fiat Toro and Volkswagen’s upcoming Tarok.
Oh, and Ford hasn’t given it a name yet, but the Courier name (which SA got to know through a badge-engineered Mazda) has been bandied about by a number of publications. We sure hope that isn’t the case as a rugged-looking bakkie that’s presumably aimed at the leisure market should not have a name like Courier.