Ford’s Ranger pick-up continues to appeal to Britain’s drivers with another record-breaking year in 2004 with 7,539 Rangers. With its bold stance and high specification as standard, Ranger is appealing to people who want to make a style statement as well as having the benefits and versatility to carry goods of all shapes and sizes. Whatever the task, the new Ranger will get the job done and turn heads in the process.The standard two-tone paint scheme covers the upper three quarters in black leaving the remaining lower section free for a lighter silver hue. Fog lamps are set into a more prominent body-coloured front bumper, which also features a chrome section to match the bright work on the grille, wing mirrors and the tubing around the rear of the cab. Inside, its Charcoal Grey leather all the way, stretched generously over the firm, supportive seating to complete the Thunder’s bold, in-your-face persona.Inside the Thunder, you get class-leading space and better materials than you’d expect from what is essentially a commercial vehicle. The seating is firm and supportive for longer trips, while the driving position is far more laidback and car-like than you’d credit. It has remote-central locking and the standard immobiliser, which forms part of Ford’s PATS, passive anti-theft system. With this kind of security kit on-board, you can be reasonably confident that nobody is going to steal your Thunder. Standard safety features include driver and passenger airbags along with ABS.
The engine is a 109bhp 2.5-litre turbo diesel a little loud, but strong enough to ensure decent performance on tarmac. In fact, we found it much easier to keep up with A-road traffic than initial impressions would suggest. We managed to get an average 29mpg, but this vehicle is all about load ability and plenty of torque. We have to point out that our road test did not include any off road driving. The load box is usefully big (though it's worth paying extra for the dealer-fit option of a plastic internal cover) and the Thunder's gross payload is 1180kg. Towing capacity is 2800kg, and with the sturdy low-down performance, we reckon this would be quite an impressive tow vehicle even though we didn’t have the opportunity to experiment.
