Ranger Super Duty spawns new segment

FORD Australia redefined the ute segment when it launched the Ranger Raptor in 2018, but now it has created a new class of vehicle altogether with the Ranger Super Duty, merging the benefits of a mid-size ute, 1500-class pickup and light-duty truck.

During a panel discussion at the model’s official launch event, which included various Ford Australia executives that were pivotal in bringing the Ranger Super Duty to life, the true origins of the vehicle were outlined.

It started with a single customer conversation more than eight years ago.

Chief executive and president at Ford Australia, Andrew Birkic, who was chief product marketer for the Ranger and Everest back in 2018, had a conversation with then general manager of global trucks at Ford, Gary Boes, and a key customer in Sydney who alerted Birkic to the fact many fleet customers had to modify the Ranger product before putting it to work.

“I took him (Boes) to meet this customer in Sydney who buys a lot of Rangers, but a lot of heavy-duty Rangers, because they’re very big in the commercial space,” said Mr Birkic.

“A lot of their vehicles they had to modify, which drove additional cost and inefficiency into their model.

“We started asking questions and there were some ‘ah ha’ moments, and as Gary and I left we sort of put our heads together and went, ‘we think there could be something here’.

“That was the genesis of the idea, it really was from customer feedback.

Shortly after Birkic and Boes left that customer meeting, special projects manager at Ford Australia, Jeremy Welch, received a phone call that set a plan in motion.

The brief was simple in theory but not in execution: a mid-size ute that could carry almost two-tonnes and tow up to 4.5 tonnes, all while remaining capable off-road.

“My phone did ring and it was Gary (Boes) on the other end, and he says, ‘look, we’ve got this idea and we want to expand it’,” said Mr Welch.

“He gave me some names in the US because over in the US we’ve been making trucks for a very long time.

The advice from the F-Series Super Duty team in the States involved three key steps, although Welch did admit there was some additional “secret sauce” shared, which drove the development of what would become the Ranger Super Duty.

“Basically go and build a relationship with the customer…go and find out what they do,” Mr Welch said, recounting the advice given by his American counterparts.

“The second thing was to understand the journey, from when they get out of bed to when they go back to bed, so what they’re doing in the workplace – but don’t just focus on the vehicle.

“The third one was to do ride-alongs, you know, actually go and talk to them and go and sit in their cars.

Across the next 18 months, Jeremy and his team began working with customers to ascertain exactly what they needed, what they didn’t need, and how a new class of ute could transform the way they operate.

“We actually did that with about 50 different companies who signed NDAs and they weren’t all Australian, we did a lot in Thailand and we had some in New Zealand as well,” Mr Welch said.

After 18 months of intensive customer involvement it was all systems go, but it was clear at that point that the Super Duty name was what the Ranger needed…with the heavy-duty credentials to back it up.

“That 18-month period was absolutely critical to us to really understand from a product development perspective what it was that was going to make this vehicle do what customers want,” said Ford Australia product development director, Steve Crosby.

“Once we defined what that looked like, it was clear that it had a capability statement that was going to have to be quite special.

“Earning the Super Duty badge, and I’m using the word ‘earning’ the Super Duty badge, was a really big deal. We had to convince the company (Ford Motor Company) that we deserved to have it.

The Super Duty badge was first used in the late ‘90s when Ford started building extra-tough F-Series models, ranging from the F-250 up to the F-600, with beefed-up chassis and driveline components capable of carrying and towing far more than standard models.

Never before, though, had a non-F Series truck worn the badge, so the Ranger had a long way to go before it would prove itself a worthy recipient.

The Australian arm of the US carmaker threw the full weight of its 1500-person-strong design and engineering team at the project, to deliver a vehicle that was worthy of the Super Duty name.

It was no small feat, with a ground-up redesign of the Ranger that saw just about every mount, bushing, and driveline component upgraded to be stronger, in order to achieve a 4500kg GVM, 8000kg GCM, 4500kg towing capacity and near-on two-tonne payload.

Before work even started, Ford Australia wanted to test available aftermarket GVM upgrades for the Ranger, as well as competitor models, to see how they performed – with the obvious goal of besting the aftermarket options.

“We bought just about every GVM upgrade for the Ranger, as well as buying two (Toyota) 70-Series LandCruisers and doing the same, and then we tested them across Australia,” Ford Australia chief program engineering, special vehicle engineering, Ford Racing and Ranger Super Duty, Justin Capicchiano told GoAuto.

Then came the development, which involved an almost entirely new chassis with an array of upgraded parts bolted to it.

“Knowing our key figures, so towing, GVM, GCM, and that operating capacity gave us what we were aiming for the whole time and everything we did was to deliver those core attributes,” said Ranger program manager at Ford Australia, Drew O’Shannassy, a former chassis engineer who walked GoAuto through the new design from front to back.

“Once we had that, it was testing – it was all about testing.

A torturous testing program saw prototypes put through around-the-clock abuse at the 4500kg GVM limit, at places like the punishing Silver Creek track at Ford’s You Yangs Proving Ground.

“We did things like water wading, mud packing, stuff that we say not to try at home…but we need to do it to prove it can do it,” said Mr O’Shannassy.

“Doing some of these events at a 4.5-tonne GVM is a lot, but doing some of the off-road testing at 4.5-tonnes GVM is just astronomically higher, so for example our engine mounts had seven times more load doing some of these things than you get on a Ranger.

The result of the arduous development program is a chassis that only shares six per cent of its original architecture with the regular Ranger, atop an array of upgraded driveline parts like stronger locking front and rear differentials, beefier transfer case, thicker driveshafts, eight-stud hubs, bigger brakes and steel wheels shod in 33-inch light truck tyres.

Then there’s the 130-litre long-range tank, sealed snorkel, and 4mm steel bashplates protecting the entire underbody – so strong that the entire ute can actually pivot on the steel bash plates in the event it bottoms out off-road.

Smart features like on-board scales and Pro Trailer Backup Assist – which is basically cheat mode for reversing a trailer – round out the list of inclusions customers asked for, and that Ford deemed necessary for the Ranger Super Duty.

However, Ford was also careful with what it chose not to include in a hardcore work-ready model like this, listening to customers who voiced concerns about features they didn’t want.

“We took a vehicle out into the mines and got some really early feedback around a particular feature that we had in the vehicle…and it was the start-stop feature,” said Mr Capicchiano.

“This customer said to us, ‘we can’t deal with that, because the mine system we use that tracks all of our autonomous big trucks that look out for where the little trucks are, means that the vehicles always need to be on’.

“So, we took that feedback and at Ford whenever you talk about feature deletes there’s always people very passionate about keeping things in or taking things out, but this was a very simple discussion.

Another customer concern was around DPF regenerations in dry areas with the obvious risk of fire, and Ford’s solution was to allow users to delay a burn using the centre screen controls.

The result of nearly nine years of local research, development and engineering is a vehicle that redefines what a mid-size ute is capable of, birthing a new segment altogether – one that blurs the line between utes and trucks.

GoAuto has extensively tested the new range across harsh off-road terrain, winding country roads, and right up at its maximum GCM, to see if it stacks up to the hype. The drive review will land tomorrow, so stay tuned.