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Employee Party Kicks Off Production of 2019 Ford Ranger
By Aaron Bragman
Ford is gearing up to start cranking out U.S.-spec Ranger mid-size pickup trucks in November and officially kicked the party into high gear with a celebration for employees and dealers at the pickup's manufacturing plant in Wayne, Mich., earlier this week. The new 2019 Ford Ranger will be built just outside Detroit at a plant that, until recently, made the Ford Focus compact sedan; it currently is being switched over to produce the Ranger and another hotly anticipated arrival, the 2020 Bronco SUV.
Hundreds of employees braved a chilly morning to attend the party in a huge parking lot. The event featured a makeshift off-road course replete with aggressive mounds, whoop-de-dos and a 22-degree angled corner designed to demonstrate the Ranger's ability to round highly steeped hillsides. While members of the media weren't allowed to drive any of the preproduction trucks (we must wait until December to drive it), we were granted a ridealong to see how easily the new Rangers were able to tackle the aggressive obstacles.
Ford provided every one of the Ranger's trim levels: from the sparsely equipped fleet XL model to the STX Appearance Package to the XLT, Sport and Lariat models. Production at the Wayne Assembly Plant officially starts Nov. 29 with trucks arriving at dealerships in early 2019. As for adding the Ranger Raptor model to the mix, we'd previously heard from the head of Ford Performance that there are no plans to introduce that model to the U.S. mix. But the Detroit Free Press reported Ford's head of global operations Joe Hinrichs as saying "never say never" to the idea of the Ranger Raptor, although he then quickly confirmed that there are no plans to make one right now for the U.S.
Still, if lower-speed off-roading is your scene, my initial look at the Ranger's abilities was promising. Models equipped with the FX4 Off-Road Package easily climbed the challenges laid out for them, employing part-time four-wheel drive and an electronically lockable rear differential. The 270-horsepower, turbocharged 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine coupled to a standard 10-speed transmission is the only powertrain available, but it seemed stout and strong. We'll know a lot more about how the new 2019 Ford Ranger drives in December, when we get our first drive of the newest entry to the hot mid-size pickup market.
