Wasn’t it ironic that Mazda ended up selling a badge-engineered Ford Ranger as their compact truck, when a couple of decades earlier, it was the other way around? This brotherly pair even sport the same blue paint.
Ford started importing the Courier, Mazda’s B-series pickup, in 1971, during the early years of the mini-pickup boom. And they sold several generations of them, until Ford finally got in the act with its own home-grown Ranger. But the tables turned in 1993, when the decline of that sector caused them to throw in the towel in North America, and start selling a re-badged Ranger as the B-Series.
That ended in 2009, two years before Ford pulled the plug on the Ranger, which was getting very long in tooth, and Ford was not willing to invest in a new compact truck at the time.
Mazda continued to build and sell B-series light trucks through at least 2006, but they are related to the Asian Ford Ranger, which is also clearly Ford Ranger-derived.
Related: CC Ford Courier – The Second Toughest Old Mini Pickup?
Ford and Mazda used many of the same colors on these “twins”, but Mazda also had a few colors that were “exclusive” to the “B” series. One of them was a medium metallic green. And some colors Ford used, Mazda did not use.
I can’t say I’ve seen this shade of blue on either brands truck.
An initial competitive advantage of the Ranger & Chevy S-10 over the Japanese were double-walled beds. But the Ranger continued with Ford’s dubious (if rugged) twin I-beam suspension until its final generation. A friend bought the initial version & it impressed me as a no-nonsense, utilitarian design.
The Kentucky-built Ranger is a rare example of a domestic model smaller than its international namesake.
Also built in St. Paul. And IFS (2wd) and Torsion Bar (4wd) front suspension were added in ’98.
Ford also did some torsion bar IFS 2wds on the Trailhead, Edge and Sport models, presumably for the increased ride height.
Is it really smaller? The U.S. Ranger was never offered as a true 4 door/crew cab pickup but a comparison of the Supercab Ranger built in the U.S. in 2011 and the “Internationally-built” Ranger with a crew cab built in 2011 shows them to be pretty much identical in length. The overseas model is a BIG 2 inches wider. Weights are about the same.
The closest we ever got in the U.S. to a Ranger crew cab was the first-gen Explorer Sport Trac, built on the same frame as the SuperCab Ranger (126″ WB) with the same mechanicals, but the body of the Explorer Sport two-door SUV.
There must have been a great lease deal on Couriers for Ford employees in the early 80s, there were tons of them being driven by maniac kids in my metro Detroit neighborhood.
I did like how Mazda was able to revise the front of their version of the Ranger, and also the Navajo. Smart move by someone at Ford to restrict Mazda to the undesirable 2-door only version of Explorer.
Mazda also had a hand in that choice, as they wanted to avoid cannibalizing sales of it’s own MPV 4WD models.
I like that shade of blue.
Also This shot reminds me of the King of the Hill episode where Hank befriends Drew Carey in a parking lot driving the same red extended cab Ranger as him
I had a ’93 Ranger XLT with the 3.0L Vulcan V6 and a 5 speed stick and it was an awesome truck, had almost the exact same ladder rack on the box as the truck on the right hand side in the first picture.
It was that early 90s teal color that was ever so popular at the time… but a solid little workhorse.
Well, as they say ‘you should see us now’. The last two generations of the Ranger have been designed in Australia and they are manufactured in Asia (Malaysia I think) for a world market….except the USA. I have seen them everywhere – Latin America, throughout Asia, Pacific Islands. They are much bigger now and Po wered either by a 5 or 4 cyl Mazda diesels. In Australia the Ranger is constantly in the list of top ten best selling cars! There is a Mazda version as well, designed for them by Ford Australia. .
In the US you would probably call them a small truck, we call them Utes.
Isuzu did the same thing, with GM’s Colorado/Canyon
Isuzu actually did it twice first with the Hombre which was based on the S10, and then after a several year hiatus they gave it another shot with the i-series version of the Colorado/Canyon.
Mitsubishi also rebadged the Dakota as the Raider after discontinuing their Mighty Max in the US.
The Isuzu Hombre was much like the B-Series in that it had unique bedsides and a unique front clip, but because little was changed in the cab, it was still quite recognizable as the American model, especially at an angle.
The Mitsubishi Raider, however, went one step further and had completely unique sheetmetal from the Dakota, even on the cab–hardly a “rebadge” of the Dodge. Not that it made any difference, since, like, 500 people bought one. I’ve seen four in the past 10 years.
My favorite small trucks. The Ranger looks like a ’95-’97. Love the Mullet Mags on the Mazda. I have a ’93 Ranger Sport, with intact decals, no less. Stock, including the tape deck.