X-rated Wildtrak a limited run … but not a runout

Another special edition Ranger has been announced. But don’t misconstrue why it is here. The current model has more life left it in yet.

“WE’RE getting there … but we’re not there yet.”

So goes the line from Ford New Zealand’s communication manager in response to the obvious question in relation to Wildtrak X, the latest special edition Ranger announced today – namely, is it a ‘runout model?’

Categorically, no.

Rather, says Tom Clancy, a dress-up that purportedly adds $7000 worth of gear for a $2000 premium over the model’s regular sticker is “a special edition.” Nothing more, or less.

“It’s not a runout action … just an awesome action.”

Already rolled out into the dealer network, and restricted to 150 units, the Wildtrak X is a $75,490 variant of the biturbo 2.0-litre automatic that, the national distributor says, builds on a Ranger tradition of delivering greater choice and personalisation to Kiwis.

“Ford continues to adapt, grow and expand the Ranger offering, bringing more targeted, specific capabilities and attributes to customers to help them meet any challenges they face; whether at work or on the weekend,” says Ford New Zealand Managing Director Simon Rutherford.

“Now with Ranger Wildtrak X, customers can get even more out of their off-road adventures.”

The donor is the 157kW and 500Nm bi-turbo diesel 10-speed auto version that is the second most popular choice with Ranger fans, beaten only by XLT in monthly sales that consistently keep the type in sector leadership, with an impressive 750 registrations per month average.

The X variant wears unique 18-inch alloy wheels with +35 offset in tough matte black finish, has fender flares - also finished in black, to emphasise the new alloys and give the Wildtrak X an unmistakable on-road presence – and has a black nudge bar, complete with an LED light bar for improved night-time vision, as a work light or to light up a campsite.

Also fitted is an A-pillar-mounted snorkel, which allows the Ranger Wildtrak X’s powertrain to breathe better on dusty roads, while reducing the risk of water entering the engine compartment so that owners can make the most of the Ranger’s best-in-class 800mm water wading capability, Ford says. 

This is the second additional Ranger announced recently, following the FX4 Max that is set to land in early 2021. At $69,990, the Max will effectively offer as a ‘working man’s’ version of the flagship Raptor but with a $15k saving.

It delivers with Fox suspension all-round, 32-inch off-road rubber and plenty of other dirty work upgrades … yet retains a 3500kg tow rating and one-tonne payload, largely through eschewing the Raptor’s fancy independent rear suspension and instead sticking with the standard leaf-sprung set-up.

Clancy has no comment on thought that Ford is going to keep outputting special editions to keep Ranger interest on the boil as the current generation, which released in 2011, heads into a final full year of full production before restarting all over in 2022.

The next Ranger will be a co-development with Volkswagen, though with Ford’s design and engineering base in Melbourne still taking the lead, just as it did with the current generation. 

Thought is that the next Ranger will continue on the current Australian-developed T6 platform, a version of which also underpins the Ford Everest four-wheel-drive wagon and the Ford Bronco built specifically for North America, but potentially yet to be re-engineered for right-hand-drive.

The next gen Ranger is expected to maintain strong styling similarity to what we have now, but will be slightly larger and will continue to be the class leader for technology.

The current generation Ranger’s strength in respect to advanced safety – remember, it was first ute in its class globally to earn a five-star rating from the national safety auditor, ANCAP  – will be built upon, with available safety aids such as blind zone warning, rear cross-traffic alert, and a 360-degree camera implementing to supplement the autonomous emergency braking, radar cruise control and speed sign recognition on today’s model.

The model will be likely obliged to adopt a centre airbag in the middle of the two front seats, a feature that has already come to the Isuzu D-Max and its Mazda BT-50 twin. That device is a new requirement to meet increasingly stringent crash safety ratings to prevent contact between the front occupants in a collision. Having it earned the D-Max a five-star under the latest ANCAP testing process, which kicked in at the start of this year.

Ford Puma - five stars but no comet for NZ

Sorry Puma fans – we’re only getting the tame versions, not the wildcat flagship.

GOOD news about the new Ford compact crossover soon on sale here if you’re interested in safety – not so much if sizzle is more your turn-on.

The positive is a top marks safety score for the Puma, decided by an independent crash testing agency whose opinion is most relevant to New Zealand drivers as it is the only organisation that has our Government’s sanction and to be fuelled by NZ tax funding.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Programme’s decision to give the new five-seater a five-star rating has thrilled Ford New Zealand.

It’s a positive for potential buyers, too. ANCAP says the car’s inclusion of autobraking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane departure warning and lane keeping, traffic sign recognition, driver impairment monitoring, rear parking sensors, TPM, Isofix and provision of six airbags across the range all weighed into the result.

That kit is available to all versions of the Puma – including one that was announced within a day of the ANCAP score being publicly shared.

The Puma ST, the green car pictured today, is set to stand as the family’s performance flagship, offering a peppier alternate to the one litre model that lands within weeks in two forms.

To refresh your memory, there’s a standard edition going for $29,990 plus ORCs as a launch special. The full RRP is $33,990. The higher specified Puma ST-Line (the blue car) adds adaptive cruise control, sports suspension, seats and body kit, hands-free tailgate, paddle shifters and other gear besides. It will go for $37,990 plus ORCs.

The ST obviously sits above that, being a taller-standing equivalent of the Fiesta ST and Focus ST, which have become popular here though are currently subject to supply disruption.

No good asking about the potential premium, though. As much as it might seem like good addition to the ST push, the performance Puma won’t be coming here any time soon.

The reason why comes down to the transmission. For now the Puma ST only comes with an orthodox, three-pedal manual. Ford NZ doesn’t see it finding it sufficient favour with that choice – they’d prefer it to have the two-pedal automated manual that is solely offered with the Focus ST now. There’s no sign of that happening, sadly.

The decision might leave ST fans a bit confused, given that the Fiesta ST is only available with an orthodox manual and seems to do just fine, regardless.

Ford New Zealand’s comms man, Tom Clancy, steered clear of going into the issue, instead simply stating: “….. no plans for the Puma ST for NZ.”

In respect to Fiesta ST and Focus ST supply, he said both had been affected “initially and again due to hurricanes delaying boats. However, supply is getting back online.

“More Fiesta STs are arriving next month, and dealers have Focus STs available. All of our initial stock of Fiesta ST sold out.”

Focus ST sales ramped up in August, with the type account for more than 30 percent of Focus sales. 

“We’ve seen the hot hatch faithful come in as customers but also new customers.”

The Puma versions signed up for duty here run a 1.0 litre three pot turbo petrol, good for 92kW and 170Nm from 1400rpm and in marriage to a seven-speed auto.

The ST, meantime, has a 1.5-litre three-pot engine with radial-axle turbo and the same 147kW as the Fiesta ST, but with an even beefier 320Nm – up 30Nm.

The extra shove in grunt gives the Puma ST the same 6.7 seconds 0-100kmh time of the Fiesta version, despite a more portly curb mass. 

Power is sent to the front wheels via a six-speed manual. It has a mechanical LSD and torque vectoring to reduce understeer and the same force-vectoring springs of the Fiesta ST. The steering rack is also 25 percent quicker, and the brakes larger than standard. Oh yes, and it sits on 19-inch black alloys with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber.

On offer for the driving experience are Normal, Eco, and Sport driving modes and a new Track mode which disables traction control while limited stability control.  Optional is a launch control function. ST Recaro sports seats make their way inside alongside a flat-bottomed steering wheel and ST gearknob.

Surely it looks worthy of a petition, right? 

Meantime, back to the Puma’s ANCAP score. One interesting aspect is that it is was based on the latest examination standard, the barometer the Isuzu D-Max (for example) faced up so well.

Because? Well, while the Puma is only arriving now, the car launched in Europe in 2019 and subsequently went through Euro NCAP crash testing in December that year. 

That same five-star rating has carried over to the Puma here despite ANCAP changing its testing criteria this year to include a more stringent frontal offset crash, side impact crash and far-side impact crash tests.

ANCAP says the ‘Euro’ rating has carried over because it is still applicable to the Puma despite the tweak in local testing.

'Rangerok’ - making the best even better

The VW-Ford ute twinning programme will be a win-win for Kiwis.

Ranger, above, and Amarok coming off a common platform will be a win for both, their distributors suggest.

SLEEPING with the enemy will deliver exciting potentials and no obvious problems.

 That’s mutually-held thought from Ford and Volkswagen’s national distributors in response to additional information about the parent brands’ commercial vehicle marriage of convenience that has particular repercussion for the country’s favourite one-tonne traydeck.

Probable release next year of a new Ranger, followed from the start of 2022 by a new Amarok heavily based on the new Ford, is just the opening shot in the makers’ agreement. 

Volkswagen will also lend Ford its MEB electric vehicle and Caddy van architectures in exchange for a foot in the door with US automated drive pioneer Argo A1 (in which Ford has a stake) and the brands will share a one-ton commercial van platform in a deal that will deliver up to eight million vehicles.

The probability of all these undertakings creating impact on the Kiwi scene seems high.

However, in the here and now, focus is on the utes and, given their huge popularity here – not least for Ranger, the Kiwi choice for five years – it’s the new ‘Rangerok’ that is making headlines.

Ford New Zealand communications manager Tom Clancy and Volkswagen New Zealand Commercials boss Kevin Richards are optimistic about how this wll play out.

As much as brand pride demands that each proclaims their current offers to be the best in this hard-fought business, both have enough admiration for each other’s products to agree that a combined effort can only deliver an even better result.

“It’s definitely very promising,” says Clancy. “Whatever we can leverage from VW will be fantastic; they build nice vehicles.” 

He’s driven the current Amarok, which the present Ranger outsells by a factor of more than five-to-one, and likes it.

“It’s very good … it has lots of good points but perhaps delivers to a slightly different market.”

 He foresees the new association producing even more positive potentials than the now-ended relationship with Mazda that spawned the current BT-50 did, simply because the German maker is so much larger and more powerful. 

Richards has the same mindset about the brands being powerhouses. Also, there was no doubting current Ranger’s success was based on it being a well-considered and properly-developed product.

“If you have to partner with anyone in a JV (joint venture) then you partner with the market leader. And that’s what we have chosen to do.

“I legitimately think we have the best ute in the present market because it has been engineered and built 100 percent in Germany.”

Notwithstanding that, Ford clearly has costing advantage from making Ranger in Thailand.

Those plants might well continue to be the source point for next-gen Ranger, but not the new Amarok – latest detail about how the deal works pinpoints a Ford plant in South Africa as having the job of building new Amarok.

That bodes well, Richards says. German-built means good quality but at enough cost to “have given us a ute that is in the upper echelons of pricing.

“What the new deal does is give us a little bit more competitiveness in a segment which is ultra-competitive. It levels the playing field from that regard.

“Also, being from South Africa could mean that we will be right at the top of the queue for supply, as they are a right-hand drive market.”

Clancy says it was heartening the team in Melbourne that had driven the current T6 design were again running the new programme. 

“I cannot go into the likely specific vehicle benefits because we just don’t know about those yet, but the team over in Australia has obviously proven their capabilities, they’re really good at what they do.

“It’s pure speculation about what we will pull out of their vehicles of terms of engineering and design but, overall, it’s definitely very promising.”

Notwithstanding that VW has made clear that the terms of the alliance allow it to achieve “a medium pickup truck engineered and built by Ford”, this still allows the Germans to tune their own product to meet their own demands.

Richards says Wolfsburg headquarters have made clear that VW engineers are working alongside the Ford team and dedicating to tuning the Amarok so that it retains crucial VW DNA, as much in its driving feel and look. This will not be badge-engineering by any means, he says.

“This doesn’t feel as though it will be allowed to get to that level. There’s a way of making joint ventures work and the greater disparity you can have between the two products inevitably leads to the greater success.”

He is certain Ford and VW will have carefully analysed this in light of the poor experience Mercedes Benz had from trying to develop the X-Class from the current Nissan Navara. 

“I’m sure that, if nothing else, that exercise has given them a real set of key learnings and I’d be very surprised if we (VW) didn’t take something away from that.”

So he simply cannot see Amarok entering as “a VW badge on a Ford Ranger”.

“They need to have their own identity and from the feedback I’m getting from Germany, we can expect to see some significant VW design cues integrated. I imagine Ford will want to retain their own identity, and understandably so, and we will retain ours.

“One of the good things about Amarok that has influenced its desirability and maintained its customer base is that it is quite sophisticated in terms of how it drives. I feel that is something we will want to maintain. We might maintain that sophistication and allow Ford to take theirs into a more rough and rugged territory.”

What’s also heartening is expectation that another V6 will be in the mix, though this time it will be from Ford.

Suggestion is that current Amarok’s six-cylinder, which now puts 190kW in all current versions sold here, is to be dropped for a newly-developed Ford Power Stroke 3.0-litre V6 turbo diesel, recently bolted into Ford F150 pick-ups, where it produces 186kW and 596Nm. This will also replace the Ranger’s 3.2-litre five-cylinder. The models seem also set to continue with a four-cylinder turbodiesel.

Continuing in V6 will be great for Amarok, given the current edition now primarily sells in that format, Richards acknowledges. 

However, keeping a smaller engine in the mix as well is also important. He says it is interesting that Ranger is doing so well, now, with its 2.0-litre biturbo – basically, it’s a proof of VW being on the right track – if perhaps a little prematurely - when it released Amarok a decade ago in the same format.

“Since we brought the V6 in for Amarok in 2016 it has made up a huge proportion of our sales over the 2.-litre. Ford having gone the other way, from starting with the 3.2 and now offering the 2.0-litre is really interesting.

“I think we have established the V6 in the market as the product to have and I we would like to keep it.  My git feel is that we will get another V6 and it will continue to achieve the lion’s share of sales volume.”

Notwithstanding, indication from within the partner brands is that the new platform is designed to accommodate something new to both models - a high-performance plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drive – also excites Richards.

“I think a plug-in hybrid … gives a ‘best of both worlds.’ It would be something we would be exceptionally interested and I think we have a lot of customers who drive our product currently who would be interested, because it would suit their lifestyle.

“We have a strong Auckland customer base and the ability to drive all week on electric when you might have a 12km route that takes 90 minutes to accomplish … well, it’s perfect. You could save the conventional power for the weekend driving. That rings a lot of bells.”

That a PHEV would also likely introduce petrol power to Amarok holds no problems. It’s a recognised application and also might give the model a chance of competing in North America.

“I don’t think it would hinder the Kiwi appetite to try it (PHEV).”

Release timings? Nothing exact, but it’s thought Ford as programme lead gets dibs, akin to the Isuzu/Mazda arrangement which gives the D-Max a market introduction advantage of some months over the BT-50.

Clancy declined to add fuel to thought about this leaving Ford with an expected ETA of late-2021. “We have no information about launch timings.”

He says Ford NZ remains delighted by current Ranger’s massive imprint on the NZ scene and expects it to continue being a strong seller for the remainder of its production cycle.

Richards also confirms current Amarok’s availability will continue right up until the new one arrives.

Meantime, the EV sharing programme has fuelled conjecture that Ford could deliver 600,000 electric vehicles atop the MEB architecture, which is the basis of VW’s ID programme. 

Ford’s vehicle will be designed and engineered by Ford in Cologne, Germany, and is expected to become a smaller sister ship to its own all-electric Mustang Mach-E, which will be introduced in 2021.

Additionally, the companies will both work with Argo AI to form distinct, highly capable autonomous-vehicle businesses based on Argo AI’s self-driving technology, a pitch which will create the world’s largest geographic deployment potential of any autonomous driving technology to date.