Debut announced for new Ford Ranger

The next-generation Ford Ranger will make its world debut on November 24, Ford has announced this week.

At the same time, the Blue Oval brand has provided our first look at an undisguised 2022 Ford Ranger, with this latest teaser image and video clearly showing the new dual-cab 4x4 ute’s fresh front-end design.

As you can see from the backlit image, the next Ranger’s tough new look is punctuated by a pair of J-shaped LED lighting signatures flanking a broad two-bar grille with prominent central Ford logo.

The bold new Ranger face fronts a squarer frontal design capped by a wide, flat bonnet with a pair of sharp longitudinal feature bulges, giving the new rig an altogether sharper, boxier look.

In the accompanying YouTube video, Ranger chief designer Max Tran and the Ford Australia design team provide an insight into how the new ute’s styling and key features were influenced by customers earlier in the process than before.

“As designers, we engaged with customers much earlier in the process, spent more time with them and got more insights than ever before,” said Tran.

“Interestingly, we found that no matter what market, our customers are doers. They like solving their own problems, and they like to feel confident in their truck … not just the way the vehicle functions but the way they feel when they’re driving it.”

Ford says the new Ranger will be the smartest, most versatile and most capable ever and, as part of its development for more than 180 markets globally, it claims it conducted more than 5000 interviews and conducted dozens of workshops with hundreds of ute owners around the world.

Ford is yet to reveal any mechanical details of the new Ranger, which was once again designed, engineered and developed in Australia, but previously said it had undergone around 10,000km of desert driving in North America, Australia and the Middle East, the equivalent of 1,250,000km of customer driving and the equivalent of 625,000km of off-road durability testing at maximum load capacity.

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Cold weather testing in North America and New Zealand have also made sure the new Ranger will cope with icy conditions, while extreme hot weather testing also took place.

Under the new Ranger’s chunky new bonnet, premium versions including the next Raptor are expected to be powered by a circa-200kW/600Nm version of Ford’s 3.0-litre Power Stroke twin-turbo diesel V6, matched to a 10-speed automatic transmission.

Lesser Rangers – including the usual array of single-cab, extended-cab and dual-cab body styles with 4x2 and 4x4 drivetrains – will come with a version of the 2.0-litre four-cylinder biturbo diesel that’s available across the outgoing Ranger line-up, matched to the same 10-speed auto.

But all models will bring a big lift in multimedia tech, led by Ford’s latest SYNC4 infotainment system with larger central touch-screen and the option of a fully digital instrument cluster.

Watch this space for the new Ford Ranger's world debut on November 24, ahead of first Australian deliveries in early 2022.