The Ranger story, of course, starts in America.
The Ford Ranger was first introduced in 1983, with a straightforward design with impressive performance. Ford provided two types of cabs, regular and extended, and two drive options, rear and four. All models came with a 2-litre four-cylinder, a 2.3-litre four-cylinder, or a 2.8-litre V6 engine. Slightly larger than the Courier, the first-generation Ranger was approximately 460mm shorter and 1279mm narrower than an equivalently configured F-100/F-150. Those first Rangers had a starting price of USD$6,200.
Before that, there was the Courier, based on Mazda’s B1800 and a pretty basic offering. The Courier launched way back in 1972. For the next decade, the Ford Courier was manufactured alongside the Mazda B-Series in Hiroshima, Japan. To avoid America’s 25 percent ‘Chicken Tax’ on imported…