New Ford Ranger Super Duty could arrive to tackle the UK’s toughest jobs

Ford is considering bringing its beefed-up Ranger Super Duty to the UK for jobs where the even regular pick-up just isn’t tough enough. 

The Super Duty brand has been sold in the US for more than 25 years as a dedicated hard-working variant of Ford’s F-series pick-ups, but hasn’t before been used on the smaller Ford Ranger in the UK, although it has in Australia. 

“We’re interested to understand what the UK would think about it,” Ford’s commercial vehicle director Alex Gallagher told Auto Express at the recent CV Show in Birmingham, where the truck was shown. “There’s no launch plan as yet, we’re testing the reaction and we’ll see what interest is like. It’s an engineering project – this is what we can do and what Ford is capable of.”

Likely to appeal for mining and quarry work, as well as farming and forestry, the Ranger Super Duty requires a Class 3 driving licence – that required for driving light goods vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes – and features chunkier tyres, reinforced chassis, steel underbody protection, enhanced off-road capability and a larger fuel tank among the modifications. Towing capacity is a massive 4.5 tonnes, a figure that is repeated for the Gross Vehicle Mass to create a mammoth nine-tonne gross combined mass. 

There’s no word yet on what it would cost if Ford does decide to launch the Ranger Super Duty here, but it would be a big step up from the £50,000 (plus VAT) of a regular Ranger Platinum double-cab fitted with the 237bhp 3.0-litre diesel engine.  

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