Category: Pick-ups 
Price Range: No data available
Detroit-forged looks melded with far-eastern reliability, refined and muscular diesel, huge towing strength.
Crude suspension gives rocky ride, not as clever as some pick-ups inside, still works harder than it plays.
More blue-collar than the L200 and Navara, but now with just enough refinement to tempt over hardy SUV owners.
Ford makes the world's best-selling pick-up, but this isn't it. Success in America with the F-150 doesn't mean it has the rest of the world begging for its trucks and UK sales in particular have slumped.
Back in 2000 Ford was top dog, then Mitsubishi came along, turned the pick-up market on its head and the workaday Ranger became mere lap-dog to the glammed-up L200 and the Nissan Navara.
But that was the old Ranger. The new double-cab 4x4 version, on sale now, is a marked improvement on its farmhand predecessor, to the point it'll tempt more than a few SUV owners.
Starting at £18,300 for the entry employee-spec model, the range is topped by the leather-trimmed Thunder version for £21,300. But that drops to £15,550-£18,095 if you can claim the VAT back.
There's a mostly new common-rail 2.5-litre diesel, badged TDCi and making a healthy 141bhp. The old 2.5 could only muster 109bhp and instantly sapped any enthusiasm the US-inflected looks might have generated. Not any more.
It's not strictly new, more like a thorough revamp of the old one, using pretty much the same architecture and components. It's not even really a Ford. Like the one, before it's a clone of the Mazda BT-50, built alongside it in a Thai factory and reliant on Mazda know-how for the majority of the engineering.
But, crucially, it looks like a Ford, and lets you indulge in Texan cowboy fantasies without having to fuel a planet-despoiling V8 or annexe half your neighbour's drive to park up at night. It's more comfortable, better equipped and cheaper to run than before. It could be just the vehicle to release your inner Springsteen.
