While the idea of Ford building a heavier Ford Ranger seems at odds with a market where consumers are beginning to shun full-size pickups, offering one that can haul nearly as much weight could likewise snag those walking away from the larger models. Ford has announced that the 2026 Ranger Super Duty will offer up to 9,000 pounds of towing capacity — enough to match some versions of the F-Series without outshining the better-equipped trims.
Slated to land in Australia, the still-mysterious Ranger Super Duty is supposed to make the midsize pickup more capable as a working vehicle. Despite the F-150 being available on the market since 2023, the Ranger is actually the nation’s best-selling model.
With the above in mind, it makes sense for the automaker to try and beef up the standard Ranger (pictured below) to maintain its position on the market. However, bed sizes are kind of a joke now that crew cabs have become ubiquitous and that makes towing one of the main reasons to buy full-size pickups over the smaller counterparts — other than the added interior volume and luxury options.
The forthcoming Ranger Super Duty will, according to the manufacturer, boast 4,500 kg in terms of maximum towing capacity. Unless things change leading up to production, the GVWR will peak at 9,920 lbs with a maximum GCWR of 17,637 lbs (both of which were converted from metric). That’s quite the step up from the current Ranger’s maximum payload and will actually make the Super Duty more capable than some versions of the F-Series.
The odds of North America seeing the Ranger Super Duty are middling. While there is definitely a strong demand for smaller trucks right now, most manufacturers tend to build beefier versions of their midsize pickups for the global market and send less tow-friendly versions into our market to encourage us to buy more full-size vehicles boasting higher price tags. If that trend continues, we probably won’t see the Range Super Duty. But we also weren’t supposed to get the Ranger Raptor either and I was sitting inside one of those earlier this year.
Our Ranger currently tops out at 7,500 pounds of max towing, with a GVWR of 6,050 pounds and a GCWR of 12,743 pounds. That’s nothing to gripe about, especially considering the engine sizes that are commonplace today. But the Ranger Super Duty would effectively become the highest towing capacity of any midsize truck on our market by a pretty wide margin. Ford may not be in a big hurry to get it here if it still thinks it can push consumers into the F-150 (pictured above in red), which is still the best-selling vehicle inside the United States.
So then, why even build the Ranger Super Duty? With Ford likewise selling the F-Series in Australia since 2023, there seems to be few reasons to even develop a smaller, more capable truck. But Australia isn’t the only market Ford is likely to sell the truck and its demand there is presumed to be great enough to warrant a more capable hauler.
Many countries simply have roads that are too small to reliably accommodate full-size pickups. Government emissions requirements are also shrinking engines and encouraging models like the Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid (above) that’s supposed to drop in Australia and Europe for 2025. It may actually be mechanically related to the Ranger Super Duty, as it’s likewise supposed to feature an impressive towing capacity of 7,700 pounds. This is despite the fact that it will undoubtedly be heavier than existing Ranger models and hybrids historically being rather poor at towing.
The platform combines Ford’s familiar 2.3-liter turbo with an electric motor and small battery we imagine will be somewhere around 15 kWh. But we’re not getting it because the manufacturer believes that its hybrid pickup saturation is already sufficient for North America. Americans are also not known to gravitate toward plug-in hybrids over other vehicle types.
It seems plausible that the company will run the same (and frankly valid) excuse when the Ranger Super Duty drops. But, if the market continues shunning full-size trucks and demands more Ranger models, odds are decent management will change its tune. Ford will still try to push consumers upmarket into the larger, pricer trucks. However, there’s a growing consumer sentiment that future buyers simply aren’t willing to spend that kind of money anymore. Unless market trends change, Blue Oval will probably need to start building more trucks with MSRPs below the average transaction price for a Ford F-Series — which was $67,000 in 2023.
[Images: Ford Motor Co.]
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Source: The Truth About Cars
