Ford Ranger Super Duty full details revealed

IT IS fair to say the Ranger Super Duty is a big deal for hard-working Australian customers.

While medium-sized utes like the Ranger and HiLux have a role to play for many, there’s a gap in the market between those models and the full-size American pick-ups filled only (and arguably) by Toyota’s aging – and agricultural – LandCruiser 70 Series.

And while that vehicle has earned it place as a reliable, no-nonsense entrant trusted by thousands of regional Aussies, its lack of modern amenities, ride comfort, technology, and connectivity sees many owners spend thousands of dollars extra even before it leaves the showroom floor.

It’s an issue Ford Australia engineers sought to tackle head-on in developing the Ranger Super Duty.

The model was engineered from the ground up to meet the demands of Australia’s remote and punishing work environments, including outback stations, dusty mine sites, and rugged fire trails.

Ford says the Ranger Super Duty combines a significantly reinforced chassis with intelligent payload and off-road technology, all validated through one of the most extreme testing programs it has ever undertaken.

Failing to meet the requirements of that program meant failing to earn the Super Duty badge.

Ford general manager of global truck Sondra Sutton-Phung said the Super Duty moniker is one Ford doesn’t issue lightly; a ‘promise’ reserved only for vehicles that have what it takes to get the job done.

“It’s a legacy began in the 1950s with a family of engines built for our hardest-working trucks and evolved into a complete product philosophy, culminating in the first standalone Super Duty in 1998, a truck that has been a mainstay on farms, building sites, and in the world’s most remote job sites ever since.”

“We’ve applied that same purpose-driven thinking to the Ranger Super Duty. This truck is the factory-developed solution to a problem hard-working people told us they had,” she said.

Ford Australia strategic projects manager Jeremy Welch said the Ranger platform offered the “perfect starting point” for the development of the Super Duty, combining the strength and comfort required for the needs of modern ‘truck’ buyers.

He said the Ranger Super Duty was born from discussions with people who depend on their trucks in the most remote terrain, including forestry crews, land managers, hard-working fleet teams, and emergency service workers, and offers many features developed specifically with those roles in mind.

“The stories we heard were always about compromise,” he said.

“They told us about being unable to reach critical locations because the only vehicles strong enough to carry their gear were simply too big and unwieldy for the tracks. It was a problem we knew we had to solve.

That feedback became a development driver for the Ford Australia engineering team who set out to build a medium-sized ‘truck’ that could tow more, carry more, and be more capable.

In short, Mr Welch said the Ranger Super Duty needed to be a “flexible workhorse” that could readily adapt to the many and varied demanding roles and environments in which Australian customers work.

The culmination of that work is the Ranger Super Duty revealed in full this week. Available in Single-, Super-, or Double-Cab Chassis body styles – and soon with a Style-Side Box option – it features Ford’s turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 diesel tuned specifically for the role at hand.

Highlights include increased cooling capacity to manage temperature under heavy loads and during sustained, difficult off-roading; a fully sealed snorkel system designed in collaboration with Melbourne-based Safari Snorkels; and the option to delay the automatic diesel particulate filter (DPF) regeneration, allowing them to manually initiate the cleaning cycle at a more convenient – and sometimes safer – time.

The Ranger Super Duty further features a steel front bumper, more extensive (and 4mm thick!) underbody bash plates, and high-mounted breathers for the differentials, transmission, transfer case, and fuel system. Those features helped increase the water-wading depth of the model to 850mm – or 50mm more than other diesel-powered Ranger models.

“Extensive testing in controlled and real-world situations proved Ranger Super Duty has the capability needed for everyone from emergency services to farmers and recreational off-roaders,” said Ranger Super Duty program supervisor Drew O’Shannassy.

Further bolstering the capabilities of the Ranger Super Duty is a suite of recalibrated and driver-selectable drive modes Mr O’Shannassy says “tailor everything from throttle response to stability control”.

Pre-set drive modes are available for use in sand, mud, and snow, over rock, and when towing and hauling, each adapting the automatic four-wheel drive system to ensure maximum torque is delivered for enhanced traction.

The four-wheel drive system – which includes a locking differential at each end – further includes more robust components from the F-Series Super Duty, Transit, and Bronco Raptor ranges to “provide dependable performance in extreme low-range situations”.

“We’ve put the Ranger Super Duty through demanding off-road tests that typically stop vehicles with only open differentials,” added Mr O’Shannassy.

“But thanks to its locking differentials, enhanced low range gearset, and a host of other off-road improvements, the Ranger Super Duty maintains traction and kept it moving through the tests.

Additional reinforcement comes from stronger front and rear driveshafts, and a new heavy-duty rear axle with “the biggest, strongest differential ever fitted to a production Ranger” for enhanced load-carrying capacity.

To help spread that load, it also gets robust eight-stud wheel hubs with larger bolts and a frame whose readily accessible mounting points “make it easy to integrate a variety of aftermarket accessories and specialised equipment”.

In taking the fight to what is its only competitor, the Ford Ranger Super Duty seriously upped the technology ante with features simply not offered elsewhere in the segment.

From front and rear parking sensors to 360-degree camera technology, blind-spot monitoring with trailer coverage to reverse brake assist with cross-traffic alert, onboard scales, an off-road shortcut button, Trail Control (essentially off-road cruise control), Trail Turn Assist (allowing the vehicle to pivot more tightly around corners off-road) and more, it’s fair to say the Ranger Super Duty is at the cutting edge of what a work truck can offer.

“It really is the sum of all its parts, and we’re confident it won’t disappoint whether your job takes you to remote trails or you’re an adventurer who likes to go a long way off the beaten track,” enthused Mr O’Shannassy.

In making sure every element of the Ranger Super Duty proved dependable and robust, Ford’s engineering team pushed its test mules to the “absolute limit”.

Reiterating the important of testing the vehicle in pack mud, Ford Australia product excellence and human factors supervisor Rob Hugo detailed the impact mud can have in vehicle performance.

“Mud is one of a truck’s greatest enemies,” he explained.

“It can add significant weight, prevent airflow, and act as an insulator, causing components to heat up much quicker.

“It’s (also) highly corrosive and can clog up fans and alternators, preventing them from running correctly.

Mr Hugo and his team tested the Ranger Super Duty extensively at Ford’s You Yangs Proving Ground, repeatedly driving it through a purpose-built mud course until it was carrying more than 600kg of packed-on mud.

He said this suffocating blanket of sodden earth is designed to find the breaking point of every component.

“Our mud-pack testing is a key part of our ‘Built Ford Tough’ validation,” he added.

“For, for the Ranger Super Duty, we knew we had to turn it up to 11.”

Ford engineers also employed autonomous driving robots to run the Ranger Super Duty 24 hour a day, seven days a week over its ‘Silver Creek’ off-road track. The track simulates driving down a rocky, dry riverbed, stressing the chassis, suspension and body mounts.

“Our Silver Creek and autonomous driving robots were designed and developed in North America for the testing and development of the original F-Series Super Duty and have been a part of global Built Ford Tough testing ever since,” said Ms Sutton-Phung.

“The truck also endured the usual gauntlet of durability tests, including corrosion baths, towing dynos, and punishing real-world off-roading.

One of those real-world tests was the 27 consecutive crossings of Victoria’s Crooked River, some of which pushed the limits of the Ranger Super Duty’s 850mm wading capacity to its very limit.

“The first crossing always gets your heart pumping,” recalled Ford Australia vehicle integration engineer Tim Postgate.

“(While) you’ve done all the maths, there’s something about driving into the water that makes engineering very real.

Mr Postage and his team also tested the vehicle as a light-attack fire truck prototype, loaded to nearly 4500kg (GVM) then driven on tracks fire crews typically couldn’t reach with their existing vehicles.

Other teams spent time on a remote cattle station doing the sort of farm work the station hands did every day, from carrying thousands of kilograms of fencing material to towing a heavy steel roller to flatten the station’s airstrip.

Ford Australia says all of this work was carried out to ensure the Ranger Super Duty met its core promise: to deliver a vehicle that lets the people doing the toughest jobs do theirs. And we can’t wait to put the vehicle through its paces in just those kinds of situations very soon.