The Colorado ZR2 Need Not Worry: Ford Ranger Raptor Not Coming To US
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A lot of hype has surrounded the Ford Ranger’s return to the United States, and we’ve long speculated Ford would offer up a second punch with a Ford Ranger Raptor. Alas, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 won’t see a crosstown rival after all. Ford has announced it will not bring the mid-size off-road pickup to America, according to Autoblog.
The official explanation, according to Ford, is the 2.0-liter diesel engine. The engine will power global versions of the Ranger Raptor and it’s been speculated a different powertrain would stuff under the hood for the U.S. Ranger. However, that won’t be the case. The 2.0-liter diesel engine isn’t cleared for sale in he U.S. and Ford said it may not pack enough power to satisfy the tastes of American customers. The engine makes 210 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque, which is substantially more hp than the Colorado ZR2’s optional 2.8-liter Duramax four-cylinder turbodiesel engine.
We’ve often suspected the 2.7-liter Ecoboost twin-turbo V6 engine would find a home in the Ranger Raptor, but perhaps fitting such an engine would leave the mid-size pickup in closer competition with the F-150 Raptor. The latter starts at around $50,000, while a Colorado ZR2 fetches around $42,000. Perhaps the price gap was too little, and Ford saw a Ranger Raptor cannibalizing F-150 Raptor sales.
The Ranger Raptor could have been intended for the U.S. at some point, but it’s also possible funds were allocated elsewhere as Ford scrambles to refresh its SUVs and phase out sedans.
But one thing is clear: the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 can sleep well tonight knowing Ford won’t come gunning directly for the rock-crawling off-road pickup directly.
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Senior management at Ford has lost their collective minds: First their questionable decision to get out of the car/sedan business and offer only SUV’s and Crossover’s…now this? Hey Ford: Boomer’s still like sedans. They have had their full-size trucks for years and are now migrating to these beatiful new mid-sized trucks. And there are -millions- of them out there. Wake up.
Ford would rather continue to say that “The F150 has been the number one truck for X years” rather than offering a Raptor Ranger. For Ford the F150 is the center of their world and nothing can beat it. Same reason for why GM never continued the Grand National.
Here is what is up. The Raptor Ranger is a small market. But Ford has a Bronco coming that may see the Raptor parts added since the share the same platform.
Not only would they be able to challange the Wrangler but also charge a higher price and sell in greater numbers.
Ford needs money a lot of money. Just offering a truck that may sell 30k units at best is better spent on a model with greater return. The Truck version could come later.
Today it is about the greatest return on investment.
Like the cars they could invest 4 billion in a car platform and get a Billion profit return.
Or they’d they can give 4 billion to a Utility platform and get 3 billion in profit in return.
It is not enough to just make money but you need to get the most return on the investment due to such high development cost today.
Also what are people buying more and more of. Well it’s not cars.
If this is true, then Ford has decided that Ranger-based Raptor is worth doing for the Austrailan/Pacific market(s) but not for the U. S.? It’s hard for me to believe that this truck would steal away f150 or Bronco sales. However it -would- nibble away at Colorado ZR-2 and Tacoma sales.
It is not about nibbling away.
It is about a chunk of money to bring a model to this market.
You have two models and just enough money to go production with one, they will choose the one that makes the most profit first then may entertain the other model later built on the profits of the more profitable model.
It takes money to make money and Ford is hurting for money.
The other problem is how much would this Raptor cost? I would be close to or over $50k and entering into the full size price range. Just because it is smaller does not mean cheaper.
There is a limit to what most will pay in the mid size range and the level declines fast at $40k and higher.
I don’t think Ford offers F-150 in Australia, so the Ranger Raptor is top dog. No in-house fighting. Ford’s original reason for not offering the Ranger in the US was that it would be too close in size and price to lower trim levels of F-150 and that fuel economy would be about the same. They offered Ranger only in markets that did not have F-150 Australia being key among them.
I’ll agree to disagree. :^) For me, it makes no sense for a company that needs cash (agree) to develop a vehicle like this and not market and make it available to the entire world.
It is not unlike the Opel OPC.
We had the Regal here with a Turbo 4 but Europe got the twin turbo V6.
Many complained but they also did not understand the Opel was also over $60,000 plus in Europe and would have been more here.
The Raptor would have been much more expensive due to additional content and would have been a lot more expensive than the ZR2.
The money to bring it here and pass all the epa and dot test would hav3 added more cost to a truck that may not have brought 10% of production.
scottc: We have reached common ground here. I agree. What hurts is that Ford didn’t develop and do the work here in the first place. Cheaper to do there? Ok. Makes perfect business sense. But then decide: “You can’t have it”… Something is broken at Ford.
We don’t know that.
To be honest it is an engine swap away from being legal as the Ranger is legal here.
Even the last model was constructed to be here and Ford just did not do it as Ford North America put the money on the Aluminum F150 than
what they saw as a higher risk mid size truck. They sat it out to see how GM did.
It is not so much cheaper but I would look at what the do as what money the do not spend here on this is going to another more profitable program.
Ford has X amount of development money to spend for each market and if they see something else with more profit and volume potential they will do so.
Say a Bronco Raptor could sell twice the volume at a higher price point and not step on the full size market then they would look into it. Not saying that is what is going to happen but that is how companies think today.
Let’s face it Ford is killing cars because they can make more money and sell more trucks and CUV models.
With high development cost just making money is no longer enough. It is all about. Aximum return.
GM share holders are getting on Barra now for more profits and higher stock. They are doing much better than Ford and she is even feeling the heat.
They sat it out to see how GM did. So much for Ford “being ahead” and “leading the way”.
Ford is killing cars because they can make more money and sell more trucks and CUV models. “Sell more trucks” (After all, most Ranger sales will be fleet). I’m with Alias on this one, the perception from the public on this one would taint that blue pill and kill their ad campaign.
Once all there eggs are in one basket, It will be an easy acquisition for VW!
Keep in mind that even though profit per vehicle is definitely a huge factor in Ford discontinuing cars, so is the fuel economy strategy. Vehicles labeled as “trucks” have lower EPA fuel economy targets than things labeled “cars”. Most SUVs and CUVs are labeled “trucks”. This is similar to FCA’s strategy. They only have three cars in their US portfolio and one of them is about to be put to sleep. When they dropped Dart and 200, it was largely because they were worst in their segments in fuel economy and were dragging down FCA CAFE numbers. Getting them to be competitive and on the plus side of the EPA targets would have required tens of millions of dollars, for vehicles with little or no profit position. By dropping them and introducing more small Jeep (truck labeled) products, FCA got an immediate boost in their CAFE performance as well as more profit per vehicle.