Ford to export Ranger from South Africa

Ford is planning to export its Ranger pickup truck from its assembly plant in South Africa to 148 countries worldwide. The increasingly-popular, and possibly the last remaining, compact pickup truck is popular in countries like the United Kingdom and Thailand, and Ford is allocating $500 million to develop the export program. The plant expects to produce the Ranger at its full capacity of 110,000 trucks annually.

The Ford Ranger manufactured in South Africa is an entirely different truck than the outdated one sold here in the United States, which was recently announced as stopping production in December of this year. The overseas Ranger is a much more advanced design, with a four-door layout and more modern drivetrains, including diesel engines. Ford also manufactures Rangers in a plant located in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, which distributed 48,000 vehicles across southern Africa.

Ford, which has recently suffered from malfunctions in its dashboard touchscreens, lost a few places on J.D. Power & Associates' new-car quality survey as a result. Ford CFO Lewis Booth said "A new survey in the first quarter will show those problems have been resolved."

Ford has not yet announced whether a version of overseas Ranger will replace the Ranger here in the United States.

Source: Bloomberg