A high-ranking Ford executive says that customers in markets in which the Ranger is sold “wouldn’t even consider buying” a Ranger Raptor powered by a petrol V6 engine.
The off-road-ready double-cab bakkie draws its urge from a fresh, twin-turbo 2,0-litre four-cylinder diesel engine worth 157 kW and 500 N.m, and mated to a new ten-speed automatic transmission. Ford Performance claims that it will complete the 0-100 km/h sprint in 10,5 seconds, before topping out at 170 km/h.
Speaking to CarAdvice, Trevor Worthington, the Blue Oval brand’s vice president of product development for the Asia Pacific region, said that Ford didn’t ever consider dropping in a six-cylinder unit.
“The vast majority of the 200 markets [in which] we sell Ranger – and when I say a vast majority, I mean 99 percent – are all diesel markets,” Worthington told the Australian publication. “It’d be like turning up with something that people wouldn’t even consider buying,” he added.
“The job always was, what’s the best diesel power pack that we can find, balanced across all the attributes, that’s going to work in all of those markets and with all kinds of people,” Worthington explained.
“This customer with this particular utility is looking for a certain level of outcome related to performance, related to fuel economy, we are convinced that this is the right solution, transmission and engine power pack.
“I think the only V6 diesel that we have is a 3,0-litre V6 and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t fit even if we tried to make it fit.”
