What Happened to the Original Ranger? America's Best-Selling Small Truck, Killed at Home

Why would 70,832 buyers in 2011 fail to save the American Ranger, a small truck that still outsold the Mustang? That was the last year of St. Paul production, and Ford was already readying a new Ranger for 180 other markets. The Ranger led all compact pickups for 17 years running by Ford's count, peaking at 348,358 sales in 1999. Ford marked the St. Paul plant for closing in 2006, pointed Ranger buyers toward the F-150, and kept the global Ranger out of North America. What this video covers: 1979: the approval of Ford's first American-built compact pickup 1982: Louisville, a bed made for plywood, and a $6,289 starting price 1994: the Mazda B-Series, a Ranger wearing another badge 2006: the Way Forward plan and a plant marked for closing 2010: a global Ranger with the United States left out 2011: the final truck, bound for an Orkin fleet If your Ranger hauled plywood home from the lumberyard, tell us which year it was. Subscribe for more stories of the trucks America stopped building. The Ranger name came back in 2019. The original truck did not.