On December 15, 2011, the last new Ford Ranger in the United States rolled off the assembly line out of Twin Cities Assembly in St. Paul, Minnesota. The last Ranger, a Sport SuperCab 4×4, went off to Orkin to help kill termites and roaches.
Then, the name boarded a Delta flight from MSP to LAX (Northwest had been fully absorbed by the Atlanta-based carrier by then), then straight on to Melbourne, Australia via Qantas.
For most of the New \’10s, the Ranger would travel the globe, exploring new cultures and terrains in Australasia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
Meanwhile, we all waited for the day when the Ranger name would finally come home.
On October 22, 2018, it landed in Detroit Metropolitan Airport, moving into its new home, the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, for the 2019 model year.
Nearly a couple of years later, one 2020 Ranger Lariat arrived at the Aubernon Highway Roadhouse for week-long residency within the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
After a trip into the Piedmont of North Carolina and a few errands back home, the globetrotter returned to its home on the other side of the Atlantic Seaboard fall line with a few new stories to tell.
Here\’s mine.