Ford May Return Ranger Production to Michigan

Ford Motor Co. wants to bring back its once-popular midsize Ranger pickup and manufacture it in Michigan, perhaps as early as 2018.

If the plans gel, the Ranger would be manufactured at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, replacing the Focus and C-Max after production of those cars likely moves to under Ford’s announced plan to invest $2.5 billion in Mexico, where labor costs are lower.

The Detroit News cited confidential sources close to the contract negotiations currently underway between the Dearborn-based automaker and the United Auto Workers union. The union and then Ford’s board of directors would have to approve the plan.

About 4,500 workers are employed at the 5-million-square-foot Wayne plant, and Ford has said that it won’t close it when some operations move to Mexico in 2018. The automaker is actively pursuing future vehicle alternatives for the Michigan Assembly Plant, Ford said in a statement.

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The Ranger would satisfy “a real hunger for midsize trucks right now,” Karl Brauer, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book, told The Detroit News.

“Once upon a time, there were a lot of midsize trucks in this market,” he said. “The ones that are available are cashing in on the demand.”

Ford’s Ranger trucks, currently manufactured in South Africa, Argentina, Thailand and Nigeria, are marketed exclusively overseas and haven’t been imported to the United States, in part because of a 25 percent tariff on foreign-built pickups.

Ford last built Rangers in the U.S. in 2011 at ia now-shuttered plant in the Twin Cities.

Over its 29-year history in the United States, Ford sold more than 6.6 million Rangers. Analysts say the automaker’s biggest concern about bringing some Ranger production back to the United States is that it would cut into sales of the full-sized F-150, the top-selling vehicle in the country.

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Photo via Ford Motor Co.