1971 Ford F250 Reviews

The Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid ute does not have a very long electric driving range, and it’s something that’s been a sticking point for some since its launch earlier this month.

Utes are, apparently, no longer mere tools of the trade. They're increasingly lifestyle-friendly family vehicles for those who want to take advantage of the space and practicality on offer. And given Andrew 'Chesto' Chesterton's family has just grown by one, who better to put the Ford Ranger Platinum to the family test?

Sound has never been a hotter topic in the world of cars than it has been in the past decade. From the introduction of hybrid and electric vehicles to even the more muted soundtrack of modern F1 cars, the noise cars make has become a major talking point.

Ford recalls versions of nearly every model it has sold since 2022.

Ford's Ranger Super Duty undercuts big American trucks as ultimate dual-cab for hardcore applications

Kia has just made a surprise confirmation that its new Tasman ute is currently being evaluated by police forces around Australia, and that had us thinking: what police vehicles are out there that aren’t the usual suspects?That's right, we're not talking police versions of the Kia Sorento, nor the Hyundai Tucson, or the Volkswagen Passat and Tiguan. We mean the left-of-field police cars. The ones you really might not have known were out there on the roads.So, with a little bit of help from Australian Police Vehicles Facebook group, here are our top five favourite police cars you might not have seen coming. Hyundai’s big eight-seater SUV is doing some undercover work for Victoria Police. This one spotted recently by Issacc Brown from IB Emergency Photography in the regional Victorian town of Sale happens to be the Calligraphy Black Ink edition of the Palisade. Exclusive to the Calligraphy Black Ink edition are 20-inch black glossy alloy wheels, tough looking dark-tinted radiator grille and black suede seats inside. The Palisade comes with two drivetrains and all-wheel drive which is powered by a 2.2 liter 4 cylinder turbo diesel or a front-wheel drive variant which uses a 3.8-litre V6 petrol. Oooh! NSW Police has got themselves a Chevrolet Suburban RST and this one spotted and snapped by Clinton J Down Photography is serving with the Tactical Operations Unit TOU. The RST grade means the large SUV comes with a 5.3-litre petrol V8, air suspension, 22-inch alloy wheels and luxurious interior features.The TOU role is “the safe resolution of high risk situations without loss of life, injury to persons or damage to property.”While this unmarked SUV is doing its best not to be noticed it’s hard not to miss something so enormous and rare on our roads.The Northern Territory Police are using an unmarked Ford F-150 as seen here snapped by an anonymous poster to the Australian Police Vehicles Facebook.While this full-sized American pickup truck is so large it almost blocks out the sun, it’s looking pretty inconspicuous as a police vehicle. The giveaways that this F-150 is serving on the force are the tiny LED emergency lights integrated subtly into the grille. You’d never know… well, almost.From what we can see this looks like the XLT grade which comes with a 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo petrol engine and part-time four-wheel drive.Here’s one Kia kept quiet - Tasmania’s police has a Carnival people mover on its force as seen here in a photo taken by Taliesan Sharman.We’re big fans of the Carnival at CarsGuide with it not only being practical but great to drive making it the perfect big family car. This one seen here looks like just another suburban family hauler especially with the roof box and awning, but on closer inspection you’ll see emergency LED lights integrated into the grille and radio aerials.  There have been some tough looking police vehicles, but not many can claim to being as tough as a Police Rescue Squad Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series as snapped here by Fleet Street Photography.This is a 2019 70 Series, which sports a 4.5-litre diesel V8 and was only available with a five-speed manual gear box. While more uncomfortable to pilot than a camel, if you did happen to have got yourself into an accident somewhere incredibly remote the chances of one of these vehicles making it to you and getting you out of there is 100 per cent.

The long-awaited electrified Ford Ranger has arrived. The Blue Oval's plug-in joins a very short list of partly battery-powered rival utes, but Ford Australia says the Ranger hasn't been compromised for the sake of its new EV ability. We're here to find out if that's true.

Cars with a manual gearbox are becoming a rare breed on our roads as vehicles equipped with automatic transmissions now dominate the market. But, fear not my gearbox-loving friend, for there are still new cars with manual transmissions for sale in Australia.What is a manual car?Here's a super-simplified explanation. A manual car is a vehicle that has a manual gearbox, not an automatic transmission.A manual car has three pedals - from the driver’s point of view, left to right, a clutch, brake and accelerator.The clutch must be physically engaged/depressed by the driver (that is, left foot flat to the floor on the clutch pedal) before the gear stick can be moved in order to change gears and then the clutch must be disengaged/released in order for the car to then move forwards, via first, second, third gear etc, or backwards in reverse.A vehicle with an automatic transmission has two pedals. From the driver’s point of view, brake on the left, accelerator on the right.There is no clutch in a car with an automatic transmission because the auto does all of that aforementioned engaging/disengaging for the driver. However, the auto shifter needs to be moved to the ‘D’ (Drive), ’N’ (Neutral), ’R’ (Reverse), or ‘P’ (Park) position.Are they still popular in Australia? Yes, there are still new manual cars in Australia but they’re much less popular than in years gone by when manual cars dominated the roads, way back in those sweet pre-internet days…Are manual gearbox cars still being made? Yes, but there are fewer of them being made and cars with manual gearboxes are generally small, cheap cars or workhorse vans or high-performance sports cars.What has changed in the trends of manual car sales in recent years? When it comes time to decide manual or auto, people have increasingly favoured auto transmissions because these tech-advanced transmissions are generally smarter at selecting the correct gear ratios than the drivers themselves.What should you look for when buying a new manual car?Apart from any usual signs of misuse, damage or lack of maintenance of the vehicle itself, take the car for a test-drive and note any clunking or grinding noises emanating from the gearbox or if it slips out of gear, or if there are strong burning smells (transmission is overheating, low fluid level), obvious leaks (worn-out seals or gaskets) and/or the ‘check engine’ light comes on.Here are the top five manual cars available in Australia as new or, in the case of one particular vehicle listed here, near new.Read on.This all-wheel drive Rexxy has a 2.4-litre turbocharged, horizontally-opposed direct-injection 'boxer' four-cylinder, petrol engine (202kW at 5600rpm and 350Nm at 2000-5200rpm) and a six-speed manual gearbox.Punchy off the mark and gutsy on the move, this is a driver’s car, through and through, with the added bonus of Recaro front seats, Brembo brakes (with ventilated and drilled brake discs) and 19-inch matt-grey alloy wheels.The WRX made this list because what’s not to like about this Subie?Price: From $67,540 (MSRP)Small manual cars are still popular as they’re at the cheaper end of the market and so more budget-friendly than their automatic stablemates or rivals.This Hyundai has a punchy 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine (206kW and 392Nm) and six-speed manual. This neat all-rounder offers plenty of driver enjoyment in a modest package.This compact car made the list because of its bang-for-buck appeal.Price: From $50,000 (MSRP)This range of traditional workhorses retain its appeal – and its manual gearbox options across WorkMate, SR and SR5 variants.Manual utes are still popular in Australia, as is a manual 4x4 or manual 4WD or manual SUV. An SR5 with a six-speed manual gearbox and a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine (150kW and 420Nm) is a solid mid-range choice in the HiLux line-up.This ute made the list because it’s a manual labour legend.Price: From $60,670 (MSRP)Manual hybrid cars offer a great compromise between driving an EV and driving an internal combustion engine vehicle; you get the self-satisfied smugness of knowing you’re helping to prevent the world from turning into even more of a natural disaster-riddled hothouse than it already is, and you can drive around without any EV-related range anxiety.The cheapest Suzuki Swift Hybrid variant is this one, with a 1.2-litre naturally aspirated three-cylinder petrol engine (with 12-volt mild-hybrid assistance; 60kW and 110Nm) and a five-speed manual gearbox.This Zook made the list because it’s an impressive little all-rounder in a hybrid package.Price: From $24,490, drive-awaySure, it was technically released last year, but how could we not include the Ford Mustang Dark Horse?This wild beast of a car is a driver’s dream; it’s like driving a go-kart which has ingested a heavy dose of some kind of illicit substance.With a 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine (345kW and 550Nm) and a super-slick six-speed manual gearbox, the Mustang in Dark Horse is a barrel of laughs to steer around.The Mustang made this list because it’s a shedload of fun.Price: $98,017 (MSRP)

Ute sales in Australia have been ballooning out for years now, but it seems the bubble for this has already popped following consecutive months of declining sales.In May 2025, sales of pick-up and cab-chassis 4x2, pick-up and cab-chassis 4x4, and even pick-up and cab-chassis over $100,000 were all down compared to the same month last year and year-on-year.This means not only sales for Thai-made utes like the Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max, among others, are down, but also larger, typically North American-made full-size pickups like the Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-150 are down.It’s the second month in a row where all the ute segments have experienced a drop in sales both year-on-year and compared to the same month last year.This follows a downward trend for overall new vehicle sales. It’s expected new car sales in 2025 won’t beat the record high of 2024.Utes that have experienced some of the sharpest downturns in sales year-to-date (YTD) include the Ford F-150 (534 sales, down 35.5 per cent), Ford Ranger 4x2 (1299 sales, down 47.3 per cent), KGM SsangYong Musso (882 sales, down 41.8 per cent), Nissan Navara 4x2 (162 sales, down 67.1 per cent), Ram 3500 (5 sales, down 81.5 per cent), and the Volkswagen Amarok (2434 sales, down 37.8 per cent).Sales of utes like the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux gained a considerable amount of popularity during COVID times and when the instant asset write-off scheme threshold was higher.Utes have historically always been popular in the business and fleet space in Australia, but over the last decade or so they’ve become more popular for private buyers.This is evidenced by the Ford Ranger, which is more popular with private buyers in 4x4 guise.The Ranger and HiLux have been tussling for the top position for the better side of a decade now, with the former claiming the podium for the last two years.As previously reported, Toyota Australia Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, Sean Hanley, said the dominance of dual-cab utes will come to an end this year and an SUV could be the best-selling car for the first time ever.This SUV could be the Toyota RAV4.In May, a total of 4003 examples of the RAV4 were sold. Despite this being down 27.4 per cent on the same month last year, it was still the third best-selling car for the month, behind only the HiLux and Ranger.“We already know that the number of ute models available to Australian buyers will expand rapidly,” said Mr Hanley back in January.“They’ll be competing for an overall ute market that is likely to remain steady, which suggests that the average sales per model will come down as a result.”“It may be, and I stress maybe, that an SUV could rise to the top of the national sales charts in the next year or two, and just maybe that SUV will be a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.”Toyota has since unveiled a new-generation version of the RAV4 which is set to arrive locally in the first half of 2026.At this stage it’s unclear whether this will impact the potential of the RAV4 achieving the sales title in Australia this year, though at some point production of the current model will wind down to make way for the new model.

Ford Australia has just launched the highly anticipated Ranger plug-in hybrid, with the Blue oval soon to boast two plug-in hybrid models in its commercial vehicle range.