The Blue Oval’s has claimed a 10th consecutive year as our favourite one-tonner, but is feeling heat to also maintain as the country’s top-selling new model.

ALL stops are being pulled out by Ford as it chases a bombast target it is so eager to secure that celebratory shirts are said have already been printed.

Effort to ensure the Ranger wraps up 2024 as the top-selling new vehicle and securing status as the country’s most popular one-tonne for a 10th consecutive year is strong.

While talk of examples in the national inventory that have yet to find a bone fide buyer being registered is not being confirmed or denied, the brand said today that it would be nice if Ranger was the dominant vehicle choice of the year.

However, it was also enforced that it wanted the vehicle to go to actual customers. 

Another impetus for registering vehicles this year is that the CO2 penalties on high emissions vehicles - a category Ranger falls into - will increase from January 1, 2025.

However, there’s also brand pride at stake; the Blue Oval eager to achieve a victory in a market that has long been dominated by Toyota.

Conquest of the ute category is already wrapped up. The closest rival in that sector, Toyota Hilux, is easily the best of the rest, yet is also far too far behind Ford’s offer to be a threat.

Hilux has only accrued barely 50 percent of  Ford’s Ranger registrations count, which at end of November stood at 10,273 units.

Ute sales have generally remained buoyant in a year when the new car market market overall has dropped. 

Last month light commercial counts, which also include vans, actually increased in comparison with the same month of last year, yet Ranger’s volume was down by 15 percent.

That fluctuation is one factor that might have further endangered it holding on as best-selling model overall.

But the bigger threat is another of Toyota’s stars, the RAV4.

The five-door medium SUV is achieving more volume than Ranger, primarily due to to the Japanese light sports utility resuming primary favouritism with the rental sector.

Last month was a biggie, with Palmerston North-based Toyota reporting 1887 examples being plated. Almost all went to rental.

Conversely, Ranger count was relatively light, with 814 being road-prepared. In November 2023, Ford achieved 1418 registrations. 

However, overall year to date Ranger count is 1221 units up on last year. 

At end of last month, RAV4 year to date count was at 9539 units, making it the singlemost significant contributor to Toyota’s overall light passenger and light commercial accrual, which stood at 27,850 units.

Th overall count is 2617 units short of where it was at the same point last year; a reflection of the tougher sales conditions that exist in 2024, with the market down considerably. 

However, in these straitened times, Toyota’s market share has increased, to 33.4 percent of all new car sales this year, as of end of last month. In 2023, it had a 24.9 percent slice from the same period. 

Ford, by comparison, had achieved 16,007 registrations by end of November, for 13.4 percent market share. In the same period of 2023, it achieved 15292 registrations.

The rental car industry’s renewed interest in new vehicles has considerably enlivened Toyota New Zealand’s registrations activity since April and it is understood this month could be another big one.

In response, industry talk is that every Ranger in inventory, including vehicles in dealer yards, is being registered, to protect the type’s historic status as a national overall top seller. 

Ford’s confidence is said to be such that it has 2000 shirts printed to celebrate Ranger being a winner in 2024. There’s no comment on that.

Overall, of course, it’s been a bleak period and November was, for the industry overall, a bleak month, with 8934 new vehicle registrations for last month representing a sobering 22 percent drop on the same period of 2023.