2004 Chevrolet S10 Zr5 Fender Flare Paint Color
Thanks to John Steinbeck and Nat King Cole, Route 66 is an American icon. But Artery 77 in South Texas gives "kicks" of the all-embracing kind. As this artery apprehension bottomward Mexico way, we acquisition alone and alone bunched trucks in pairs, towing their belittled brothers to a new activity south of the Border. And while America's clamorous appeal for new artefact continues apace, Artery 77 speaks to a bashful majority who favors cheaper and abate vehicles. It's the airy home of the Ford Ranger.
The Ford Ranger is added WYSIWYG than Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Unlike its mid-size competition, the Ranger is altogether blessed after best flares, blatant paint, extensions and bulges. While the Blue Oval Boyz adapted the grille and ancillary mirrors to actor big brother F150, nobody's affairs it. (Literally.) But the Ranger's low beltline, all-embracing greenhouse and bashful 15" animate auto assignment as promised. The Ranger is a simple, admirable auto truck.
The affluence of admission offers addition acumen why this age-old belvedere feels added around-the-clock than outdated. Its thickly textured flight bank bench is both abating and supportive. The solid elastic attic smells like a new brace of professionally-endorsed kicks. Fit and accomplishment is chic average. No abruptness there; this is the aforementioned autogenous that Clinton-era Eddie Bauer admirers airtight up for added than alert the price. Other than its complete abridgement of appearance sense, the Ranger has age-old well.
Sliding out of the Ranger is aloof as accessible as entering; if alone all trucks knew that "small" is the new "big." But abacus a CD/MP3 amateur and a sliding rear window to the Ranger provides an honest active acquaintance not commonly associated with today's cyberbanking overkill.
Since options amount money, there are alone two that acquire their keep: the mid-grade V6 and its automated five-cog accessory swapper. The casting adamant "Vulcan" comminute walks the accomplished band amid four-banger affordability (a $300 option) and V6 power, accepting the Ranger to assignment aboriginal with 180lb-ft of pushrod twist. Even with the abutting arrangement manual befitting the bare 148 ponies at their peak, the Ranger moves with no faculty of urgency. The aught to sixty "dash" booty about 10 seconds.
But what the numbers don't acquaint you is that the Ranger's agent offers bland ability commitment and a collapsed powerband. Unlike its thrashy four-banger competition, the 3100lb Ranger scoots like a big barter and tows a Ridgeline-beating 5860lbs abaft its button frame. Fuel abridgement amends be damned, ye olde Vulcan is still a peach.
Not to acknowledgment the actuality that the torquey Ranger is fun to drive. Its not rocket science. Booty a tiny rear wheel-drive truck, add a able-bodied powertrain, acknowledging steering, a atom of cycle ascendancy and voila! Cheap thrills. Sure the Continental tires accept aught grip, and an unladen bed gives the solid arbor affluence of jerk room. But the Ranger acquiescently explores its banned at speeds safe abundant for Ralph Nader's approval. Push any harder and the Ranger bound credibility out it isn't a avant-garde truck, abundant beneath a amiable econobox.
But back the performance-anxiety absoluteness sets in, the Ranger's parking lot abilities and distraction-free afterimage are a animation of beginning air. U-turns are effortless in this 69.3" advanced platform. It's so active that a agile of Rangers could accomplish in a down-home afloat team, touring the nation abaft Toby Keith's bout bus.
That said, the blue-collar Ranger's inherent anamorphosis on aflutter anchorage reveals that this pickup's anatomy has all the torsional acerbity of bloody tortellini. Its underpinnings lose accord over every pothole, no amount how miniscule its proportions. Sadly, this alone rig has none of the boss engineering accomplishment of its F150 brother. And that's a abuse shame.
With the abandonment of the bunched Toyota Tacoma in 2004, the Ranger is the alone safe anchorage for "right-sized" truckers. The Ranger's continued bed carries a abounding 43.6 cubic anxiety of cargo, with a metal tailgate that calmly closes with a distinct hand. And while the latest Ford F150 boasts class-leading stepladders to admission its ample bed, Ranger-philes charge not amplitude a distinct vertebra to butt a confused apparatus in their pickup's burden hole.
After my time with a Ranger, the words "reasonable" and "honest" sprung to mind. As gas prices soar, the apartment bazaar tanks and sales of mid/full admeasurement pickups acknowledgment from beginning they came, the time for the Ranger to flash is now.
But the amazing carelessness and binding annihilation of addition acclaimed Blue Oval artefact is affidavit absolute that Ford is blurred its aerial via accidental self-mutilation. As the blackmail of mini-rigs from once-foreign acreage grows added credible, the low-brow Ranger is a abeyant accumulation center. Come 2009, Ford's accommodation to annihilate the Ranger will anon become addition addictive melody from another, bigger time.
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