Ford Ranger top of the trucks

European safety watchdog sings the praises of Aussie-engineered Ford Ranger

1 February 2012

By RON HAMMERTON

THE Australian-developed Ford Ranger has been singled out for special praise in the annual European New Car Assessment (ENCAP) safety awards, being lauded as the safest ute ever tested by the organisation.

The plaudits from the independent European safety watchdog are a feather in the cap for the hundreds of engineers and designers at Ford Australia’s technical centres in Victoria where the new-generation Ranger was developed in parallel with Mazda’s BT-50 one-tonner ahead of their release last year.

Although ENCAP does not have a specific category for utes in its annual awards, the organisation was moved to mention the Ranger after its five-star performance in crash tests – a tough ask for a two-tonne ladder-chassis truck.

“Special mention should be made of the Ford Ranger, the only pickup tested by Euro NCAP in 2011,” ENCAP said in its statement announcing the Best Cars of 2011.

“The Ranger is the safest pickup yet tested by the organisation and scored highly in all areas of assessment, most notably in pedestrian protection.”

Ford Australia brand communications manager Neil McDonald said the accolades were validation of the efforts of the engineers and designers who had worked on the Ranger project.

FordRanger center imageEuro NCAP frontal crash test pictures from top: Mercedes-Benz B-class, Chevrolet Aveo, Ford Focus, Volvo V60, Chevrolet Malibu and Dacia Duster.

When it was tested for ENCAP last year, the 2.2-litre diesel dual-cab Ranger scored a remarkable 96 per cent for adult occupant protection – superior to four of the five passenger car category winners in the 2011 ENCAP awards.

Only Mercedes-Benz’s B-class – winner of the award for the best small MPV tested by ENCAP in 2011 – scored a higher adult protection rating of 97 per cent, but even then, the Ranger scored higher child and pedestrian protection scores.

The B-class, which is due to be launched in Australia in April, scored 81 and 56 per cent respectively for child and pedestrian protection, while the Ranger blitzed the tests with scores of 86 and 81 per cent.

The ENCAP result for Ranger was rubber-stamped by Australian NCAP, except for two single-cab cab-chassis variants in which head-protecting side airbags – standard on all other models – are only optional, reducing their rating to four stars.

The Ranger’s crash result bodes well for the safety rating of a new SUV – likely to be called Everest – being engineered on the same T6 platform at Ford Australia.

The good news for Australian car buyers is that all five 2011 ENCAP passenger vehicle category winners are either available in local showrooms or will be soon, and that they include a couple of the most affordable new cars on the road.

The latest Holden Barina – known as the Chevrolet Aveo in Europe – was judged the top achiever among ‘supermini’ cars tested in 2011, while the new Ford Focus was triumphant in the small-car class.

The Audi Q3 was awarded the gong for the best compact 4x4 offroader, while Volvo’s V60 wagon was named best large family car.

Among the runners-up were the Chevrolet Malibu, Mercedes M-class, Toyota Yaris, Lexus CT200h, Opel Zafira Tourer, Hyundai ix20 and BMW X1.

Of these, the Toyota Yaris, Lexus CT200h and BMW X1 are already on the Australian market, while the Chevrolet Malibu – to be sold here under Holden badges from late 2012 or early 2013 – and Mercedes M-class – due in April – are on their way.

So far, there are no plans to sell either the Opel Zafira or Hyundai ix20 in Australia.

The award winners were selected from 53 new models tested by ENCAP in 2011. Of these, about three quarters achieved five stars, while 11 were rated four-star performers.

The dunce of the class of ’11 was the Romanian-made Dacia Duster – a compact SUV built on a Nissan platform by Renault’s budget brand – which scored just three stars, along with some stinging criticism from ENCAP engineers.

ENCAP tested the first electric cars in 2011, with Nissan’s Leaf becoming the first EV to score a five-star rating.

ENCAP praised Volvo and Mercedes-Benz for their inclusion of pioneering autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems that use radar to detect an imminent collision and automatically brake the vehicle.

Euro NCAP secretary general Dr Michiel van Ratingen said ENCAP would add AEB to the list of other technologies such as ESC that are already required for a five-star rating.

“The safety case for AEB systems is very strong, and we are therefore strongly encourage manufacturers to increase the availability of such systems on new cars,” he said.

“We are well underway to add the assessment of these systems to the overall rating and to make these systems a requirement for five stars in the future.”

This year, ENCAP has already raised the bar for five-star achievement, demanding a 60 per cent pedestrian protection assessment – up from 40 per cent – as a minimum.

Based on that criteria, only two of the five category winners in this year’s ENCAP awards – the Ford Focus and Volvo V60 would retain their five-star rating.

The Ford Ranger would also remain a five-star vehicle, but the Mercedes M-class would drop a rung.


Ford Ranger Laudable: The Ford Ranger has been hailed as the safest ute ever tested by Euro NCAP.

New Ford Ranger the world’s safest ute


Safe as houses: Melbourne-designed Ranger has achieved one of the best crash scores ever awarded by Euro NCAP.
Highest safety rating for Oz-designed Ranger as Yaris, Veloster also get five stars

27 October 2011

By MARTON PETTENDY

UPDATED 28/10/2011

IT’S OFFICIAL. Ford’s new Australian-engineered Ranger is the world’s first full-size ute to achieve a maximum five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP.

The Melbourne-designed Ranger, which went on sale in Australia this month and will be built in Thailand, South Africa and Brazil for 180 countries globally, scored 89 per cent for overall safety – the best score ever earned by a pick-up and one of the highest scores recorded by Euro NCAP for any type of vehicle.

The Ranger's top safety rating has also been adopted by the European New Car Assessment Program's Australian affilliate, ANCAP, and applies to all Rangers sold in Australia and New Zealand.

"This is a very important announcement for our customers," president and CEO of Ford Australia Bob Graziano.

"When we developed the all-new Ranger we set out to establish many new benchmarks and we are hugely proud of the results we have achieved. Today's announcement is further proof we have developed a vehicle that delivers the levels of safety customers expect in this all-important vehicle segment."

The outstanding result confirms expectations privately held by Ford executives, who told GoAuto at the local launch in late September that internal modelling had validated Ford’s goal of designing the Ranger as a five-star safety performer.

Amazingly, the Ranger achieved the highest rating of any vehicle ever tested by Euro NCAP for pedestrian protection (81 per cent) – another result that should also apply to Mazda’s mechanically identical new BT-50 ute, which was developed alongside the Ranger in Australia and went on sale in October.

The Ranger scored the same impressive 96 per cent score for adult occupant protection as just two of the 12 vehicles Euro NCAP tested most recently – the Hyundai Veloster coupe and Mercedes-Benz M-class luxury SUV, both of which will go on sale in Australia by early next year.

All 12 vehicles in the latest round of ENCAP testing scored a maximum five-star safety rating, including the Veloster and M-class, as well as the new Toyota Yaris launched here this week, BMW’s new 1 Series hatch and Holden’s Captiva SUV.

The Captiva tested in Europe was equivalent to Holden's Series II Captiva 7 SX 2.2-litre turbo-diesel.

The 1 Series, M-class and Yaris all scored more than 60 per cent for pedestrian protection – the lower limit that Euro NCAP will set for a five-star rating from 2012 onwards.

Other newly announced five-star safety performers are Audi’s upcoming Q3 mini-SUV, Opel’s sleek new Astra GTC coupe and Zafira people-mover, which are more than a year from Australian showrooms, the Dodge Journey-based Fiat Freemont and Lancia’s Voyager and Thema.

However, none of these models matched the 96 per cent overall adult protection or 81 per cent pedestrian protection score of the Ranger, which also beat all but the Veloster of the 12 most recently tested vehicles in terms of child safety, with a score of 86 per cent.

Crucially, the Ranger outperforms all of its direct rivals in all areas of safety. While Ford and Holden’s Falcon and Commodore passenger car-based utes have achieved five-star (Australasian) NCAP ratings in recent years, the Ranger is the world’s first full-chassis pick-up to do so.

Although Volkswagen’s new Amarok dual-cab is rated as a five-star model in Australia, where all examples are fitted with side/head airbags, it achieves a four-star rating globally because in some countries base models are fitted only with twin front airbags.

Mitsubishi’s Triton is a global four-star performer, while Toyota’s top-selling HiLux also scores four stars.

All Ranger, BT-50 and Amarok models also come standard with electronic stability control – a prerequisite for a maximum five-star Euro NCAP rating – but the potentially life-saving safety feature became standard only on selected HiLux models with this year’s midlife facelift.

The major HiLux upgrade also now sees curtain airbags fitted to 16 model variants.

Like Ford’s Falcon sedan, the Ranger comes standard with twin front and seat-mounted front-side/thorax airbags – plus a driver’s knee airbag – but not full-length side curtain airbags for rear passengers in dual-cab models.

Nissan’s D40 Navara was among the first pick-ups to come with ESC but only scores three stars, while all other utes achieve a three-star result or less. These include Holden’s Colorado, Isuzu’s D-Max, Toyota’s 70 Series LandCruiser and Nissan’s Patrol, all of which offer only twin front airbags.

Two-star utes include Mahindra’s Pik-Up, SsangYong’s Actyon Sports Ute and Great Wall V240, while Proton’s car-based Jumbuck was roundly criticised for scoring just one star.

The Colorado, D-Max and SsangYong will be replaced by all-new models next year, when a host of new utes from China – including from Foton and ZX Auto – are also expected to go on sale here. A heavily upgraded SsangYong ute is also due in the second quarter.

The third-generation PX Ranger – the first to be developed in Australia – marks a significant improvement over the model it replaces, which achieved a two-star adult occupant protection rating in 2008.

On sale initially only in dual-cab 4x4 form with a 147kW 3.2-litre Duratorq five-cylinder turbo-diesel engine but soon to become available in super-cab and single-cab guises with petrol and diesel engines, the new Ranger was initially forecast to find some 400,000 homes around the world annually, giving it the broadest reach of any Ford model.

The Ranger comes standard with ESP electronic stability control, Trailer Away Control, Adaptive Load Control, Hill Descent Control, Hill Launch Assist and ABS brakes.

“With such pedestrian protection the Ford Ranger is undoubtedly raising the bar of safety in the category of pick-up trucks, which had until now not proven to be the safest,” said Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratingen.

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