‘Never seen before’: Ford's big ute win

Ford Australia said the brand was confident it would maintain its position as the second best selling brand in the nation thanks to the “never seen before” response to the new Ranger Super Duty.

The Blue Oval's Australian Marketing Director Ambrose Henderson said the brand was “really confident” in its plans for next year, despite renewed pressure from both established and upcoming rivals.

Ford depends heavily on its best-selling Ranger ute for its impressive sales of nearly 100,000 units in 2026. It now faces a renewed push from Kia with its long-awaited Tasman and BYD shaking up the ute space with its smash-hit Shark 6 PHEV, and that’s not to mention Toyota and its recently-refreshed HiLux range.

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Henderson said continued updates for the Ranger and Everest line-up, including wider availability of the V6 now the 2.0-litre bi-turbo has been axed, as well as new variants and incremental content upgrades would see the ute continue to fend off the competition.

But the biggest source of new sales will be the Ranger Super Duty, Henderson said.

By this, he means the Super Duty was unlikely to cannibalise existing Ranger Sales, and instead will enter a new category where fewer rivals are able to compete.

The Super Duty is a unique offering in the Australian market. Much more than simply another Ranger variant, the Super Duty is almost entirely new underneath, with an up-gauged frame, new suspension, heavy duty axles and even a new transfer case. These allow it up to 8000kg of GCM and push it into a category above most dual-cabs.

“The initial response has been incredible," said Henderson. “Right back from when we first announced the nameplate - we were flooded with a response we’ve never seen before.”

While he wouldn’t yet share numbers - these should become available around this time next month when the first round of VFACTs figures drop for 2026, he said the models available now were just the beginning of what the true volume the new ute has to offer.

“The more retail pick-up and XLT are launching later this year, and we’ve got really strong order banks for those as well. The response has been really overwhelming,” he said.

While the true scope of Super Duty is yet to be seen, Ford can chalk up a handful of other segment wins despite being slightly down for the year, by 5.8 per cent. The Ranger-based Everest off-roader is number one in the Large SUV segment, while Mustang leads the sports car pack. Plus, the brand had a record year for its Transit van range.

There are storm clouds on the horizon for Ford. Rivals are circling with new options and the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which places heavy fines on high-emitting engines such as Ford’s diesel V6, poses a threat as Ford is not selling enough electric cars to help alleviate its fleet average.

The critically well-received Mustang Mach-e for example, only found 483 homes over the course of 2025.

“We’re in the most competitive automotive market in the world — within that, everyone is fighting really hard,” Henderson said.

“We’re happy with the performance we have in that EV area, but we’ll have more transitional technologies over time.”

“If you think about where Ford does really well in providing that capability to travel around Australia and be able to do those kinds of 4x4 activities - there still needs to be more of an investment from an infrastructure point of view to make those things more viable,” he said.