Spying! The Ford Ranger looks long with an extended wheelbase | Biden News

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Currently, every new Ford Ranger available for sale in this country – SuperCab or four-door SuperCrew – has the same length and wheelbase: 210.8 inches and 126.8 inches, respectively. That means customers looking for the comfort of a rear seat sized for someone larger than the average Oompa Loompa will have to sacrifice about a full foot of bed length. Now, it seems, that will change.

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Caught running through the mean streets of Michigan, this lightly camouflaged Ranger appears to have a much longer wheelbase and overall length than the current truck. Although it’s four doors that open forward, as you’d expect from a SuperCrew, peeking through the eye-crossing camouflage reveals a fuel door with a wide strip of cargo box sheet metal ahead of that portal.

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Currently, the Ranger SuperCrew only has a sliver of space between the fuel door and the front of the bed; it’s the SuperCab with its longer body and smaller cab that has a lot of real estate in that area.

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All this leads to an interesting point. If the Ford team plans to offer a Ranger SuperCrew with a long bed, they’ll also need to stretch the truck’s frame to create such a machine. This is no small thing, even if its main levers – suspension, transmission layout, etc. – do not change significantly. At a minimum, a longer frame requires a longer drive shaft plus other accessories, not to mention various adjustments during assembly.

Since most automakers are unwilling to spend the money to develop a frame or chassis for a single body style of a single model, it’s not unreasonable to think that there might be plans to expand to other vehicles that use this platform as their base. It would be irresponsible to suggest a three-row Bronco since the 2- and 4-door variants have a different overall length and wheelbase than the current Ranger, but it’s always interesting to speculate. Note to Ford: The Jumbo Bronco may lose its off-road advantage in terms of maneuverability, but they’ll sell like hotcakes.

As for the rest of this Ranger test mule, the expected changes for the 2023 model year – headlights, taillights, etc. – are all present and accounted for. Expect the new Ranger to debut in our market sometime later this year.