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Ford confirms Ranger, Bronco, will return 2019

Odyssey said:
Oh gawd I couldn't get past the 03 second mark of the see splat.
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I didn’t get that far watching that video, but then I kept jumping ahead; I really thought that fugly matching truck and canoe would eventually be videoed speeding down a boat ramp, ending in a giant splash and the hideousness slowly sinking from sight.

I had early 90’s graphics on my; very 90’s, a fugly swoosh design down both sides. I wasn’t fond of it and today it would identify the truck graphics era as closely as avocado kitchen appliances identify bad choices made in the 70’s.

Odyssey said:
The salesman couldn't believe his luck when the man after spurning all the doodads and bells on offer crumpled and accepted to add a hood deflector. Smoky coloured and curved pos. I couldn't believe it either. I hated looking at that every day I drove that truck, but after paying the extra $100 couldn't bring myself to remove it. Kept hoping for the lucky day I'd hit something. Actually, I did hit something eventually. A bird, and it was a big one. Might've been a duck. It bounced off the windshield and kept flying, leaving behind a glutinous smear of crap and egg (!!). But it never as much as glanced off the deflector. dang. That expensive piece of plastic must've done it's job.
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I put on one my 84 Toyota, a cheapo flat clear plastic version. I had a winch on the front and with the radiator partly blocked the truck would run hot on long desert trips and climbs. I installed the deflector tilted downward a bit to deflect a little air towards the radiator. It served the radiator cooling purpose but was a PITA when tying down boats; the lines had to be run between the air deflector and hood. That could be a lot of lines.



(Nice welded steel platform for the winch though)

That cheapo deflector didn’t actually do much to keep bugs off the windshield. It got worse on one trip. I was heading west across I-10 in eastern New Mexico one year. Between Deming and Lordsburg there were once billboard signs proclaiming (one of them) the “Duck Capital of NM”. There is an expansive shallow desert basin there along the edge of the continental divide there that briefly fills with water in the rains. Great stopover for migrating ducks.

Also excellent for a mayfly hatch, the likes of which I have never seen. For several miles it was like driving in a heavy snowstorm with limited visibility, in part because the air was clouded with wings, in larger part because every “snowflake” went SPLAT against the windshield.

If you have never, think this, for several miles:

https://www.google.com/search?q=may...=1n3iWPSJK-iQ0gKXkp2ABg#imgrc=OwVkHIMU_owjgM:

That built up to a thick bugsludge the consistency of creamy peanut butter pushed aside the smeary windshield before I exited the cloud.

I should say “we” exited the sludge. Every single westbound car exited at Lordsburg and lined up at the then one lonely gas station. In a line. To use the squeegee.

I had an additional problem. An inch of bug carcasses deflected onto the radiator. Do not count on a lonely desert gas station to have a convenient hose bib and running water. Scoop that hot mush out by hand and splash it with the 5-gallon water carboy.

I have driven across I-10 in NM a dozen times since and never seen a repeat. Really don’t want to; I was finding stray wings in my canoe for a year.
 
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Mike - now imagine going through that in a sailboat fresh clean new sails. Did you know that mayfly blood is red - just like ours?
 
Steve in Idaho said:
Mike - now imagine going through that in a sailboat fresh clean new sails. Did you know that mayfly blood is red - just like ours?
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Eeech, thinking about sailing through that cloud I now count myself lucky to have been in a windows rolled up, vents-off, closed cocoon of a vehicle. I eventually hosed & soapy sponged most of it off the truck and boat, but Mayfly wings kept appearing from between the hull and vinyl gunwales for quite some time.

A mayfly hatch must be a special hell on a motorcycle. Just. . . . . no.

I did not know that about mayfly blood. The goo on the windshield and radiator was a wing encrusted brown-ish paste, but then I am very color blind, and when I ran dry of washer fluid I may have thrown the last of my coffee out onto the windshield as I drove along half blind. It wouldn’t have been the first instance I resorted to that.

There was a time I stopped for nothing as long as I had enough gas to keep going. Need to piss? Use the hospital-style urinal at 60 mph, slow down to 25 when there is vacancy on the highway behind and pour contents on pavement. Note: Much over 25 will create aerodynamic splashback. Don’t ask how I know. Also make sure the driver’s side cap window in closed. Don’t ask how I know.

Getting tired at 4am with a half tank still to go? A pre-dawn highway speed toilette is a far better pick me up than quaffing yet another cup of coffee when travelling a lonely stretch of deserted highway.

I would get everything out of my toiletry bag and array it on the dash. Brush my teeth, rinse and spit out the window. Nice straight stretch of road, look at the headliner and drop a little Visine action in each eye. Hmmm, chapstick and a hair brush, why not. Maybe some wet wipe action for the pits and nether regions. Almost like a new man.

Almost. My hair is still greasy feeling. Another straight stretch of unoccupied road might bring the ultimate pick-me-up; I would wash my hair.

Lean out the driver’s window, splash some canteen water on my head. Noggin back in truck, lather up with Dr. Bronners while at the wheel, lean out the window and rinse. The canteen rinse is surprisingly effective at 60 mph. Towel off and drive for another few hours wide awake and refreshed. And presentably clean. (Not recommended for winter travels)

That pre-dawn toilette was especially advantageous when the next shift driver was sleeping in the back and I didn’t want to wake them by stopping unnecessarily.

Provided of course the cap window was closed. Sorry about that; how did you sleep otherwise?
 
Amateurs. Mike, if you have to splash some canteen water on your head whilst leaning it out the driver's window, your windshield washer sprayer nozzle is improperly aimed. By about 2 feet.
 
Nice hood ornament on the Taco Mike, the baby, not the duckhead. Back before child seats?
 
Odyssey said:
Amateurs. Mike, if you have to splash some canteen water on your head whilst leaning it out the driver's window, your windshield washer sprayer nozzle is improperly aimed. By about 2 feet.
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Brad, washer fluid would probably have done a better job at dislodging the bugs crusted in my hair, but canteen water was free.

When I had vehicles with a rear window squirter I wanted it twisted or occluded to aim several feet behind the car as a tailgater warning. “If this is hitting your car, jeeze, ya know, you are probably too close”.

I would have preferred the rear window reservoir filled with something other than washer fluid, but never went to those lengths. Hydraulic fluid would work well; I once drove past a highway work truck that busted a hydraulic line just as I passed, spraying my windshield. That stuff is a bear to clear off glass.

Back in the 35mm SLR day I kept the camera’s flash/strobe attachment in the glove box, especially for nighttime use.

Oh, yer gonna ride my arse with the left lane wide open? Turn that strobe on, hold it out the window facing backwards and let rip. That always backed ‘em off. I suppose they thought I had their picture as well, which may have eliminated any further aggressive behavior beyond a raised middle finger and still blinking scowl as they passed.

Even with the Taco’s front-only windshield washer I will lay on that squirt mechanism as long as it takes to move a tailgater off my arse. I love it when their wipers come on and they suddenly elect to pass.

I am a granny lane traveler, at traffic speed or slightly above the posted limit on empty highways. Go around you moron!
 
Yup, that's me in the slow lane of life, literally and figuratively. "There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call..." ...the slow lane, and it's a good place to occupy in the twilight zone of my life.
But in my young and restless days I once reaped the just rewards of tailgating (before I was reborn as a sensible driver). I was impatiently driving a rust bucket behind a rustier bucketty pickup pulling a trailer. I nosed as close as I dared waiting for a chance to pull out and pass (idiot that I was). I didn't notice the railroad tracks approaching, and so was a little light headed as first the rusty pickup, then trailer (what was in that big barrel anyhow?) went airborne, followed by my own rusty car...soon followed by the contents of trailered barrel...driveway sealer tar. Sploosh and shpletttt ...I received a generous splattering bumper to windshield, mirrors to roof, looking like I'd been spat on by a baccy chewing troll. I did the last thing you'd want to do next; I tried my wipers, and then to add insult to injury the washer fluid. I made it home okay, but had some explaining to do when I got there. The only thing that guy could've done better to punish me would've been if he'd had a loose pile of feathers for the finishing touch.
 
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Muskrat said:
Nice hood ornament on the Taco Mike, the baby, not the duckhead. Back before child seats?
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That’s no Taco, that’s the most basic long bed Toyota Hi-Lux you could buy in 1984. There is an infant seat strapped on the passenger side of the vinyl bench seat. BTW, infant car seats take up a lot of seat space.

My wife spent that journey attempting to fit in the squinchy remains in the center of the bench seat, while I shifted the 5-speed between her legs. We were young, and I’m not sure who enjoyed that 5-speed more. “No honey, I always shift with my fingers splayed like that. Why are you so jumpy?”

It wasn’t long before I bought an Extra-Cab with back seats.
 
Reading through the business news today... first-quarter 2017 Ranger sales in Europe were up 28%, showing the same uptrend as in America with the F-150. Some of the European sales were for commercial use... this year's first quarter is the best yearly start since Rangers started selling there in 1999. Ford's Ranger remains Europe's most popular compact truck - globally, Toyota's Hilux (?) is the biggest seller.

Rangers will be available 2019 in America and now it seems in China a year earlier in 2018. Ford is doing well financially, with almost $13 billion coming in in cash from sales around the world last year. All that money is almost certain to be used to increase Ford's dominance whatever that turns out to be... that might be a basic plain-vanilla truck yet Ford tough to suit the needs of the world's Mike McReas or an electric self-driving infotainment cubicle on wheels, anyway, we wait and see.
 
The State department doesn't spend on genuine Toyota Hi Lux's for rebels anymore, because there are cheaper Chinese copies.
 
I recently read a few articles about the Chicken Tax, a 1963 tariff, still in force, on foreign made pickup trucks. Aimed at the time at Volkswagen, it explains why my Tacoma was made in Texas and Nissan pickups are made in Mississippi.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/cars/...=.90991931a09c

That may also help explain why Ford is dropping every car model except the Mustang, to make only pickups and SUVs.

BTW, Volkswagen still makes some nice little (key word) pickup trucks. The Saveiro, a true compact pickup, sold in Mexico for $11,000 USD.

https://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-alre...you-1824191223

The last Volkswagen I owned was a 1968 Beetle (in the 80s), but if I could buy a Saveiro for $11,000 I would have one in the driveway as a back up vehicle.
 
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