Ford Adding Overtime Shifts to Meet Unexpected Ranger Demand

The new Ford Ranger may be based on an older platform, but that clearly hasn’t done much to reduce interest in the midsize pickup truck. According to Automotive News, Ford expects January sales to top 1,200. That’s not bad for its first month, but more importantly, Ford says more than 300,000 potential customers have said they plan to buy the new Ranger.

To meet that demand, Automotive News reports that Ford will add overtime shifts at its Michigan Assembly Plant starting next week. “Based on the orders coming in, and based on the hand-raisers, we think the demand’s going to be so strong, that starting in February our assembly plant will be going into massive overtime,” Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of North America, told reporters.

What isn’t clear at the moment is what sales will look like once the initial pent-up demand is met. Despite having a long history as one of the top-selling trucks in its class, the Ranger hasn’t been sold in the U.S. since 2011. It’s possible there’s a large number of loyal Ranger buyers and Ford fans looking for a smaller alternative to the F-150 driving initial demand.

On the other hand, the F-150 is the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. and has been for years. If there’s that much interest in Ford’s full-size truck, why shouldn’t its midsize truck be similarly popular?

Source: Automotive News (Subscription required)

The post Ford Adding Overtime Shifts to Meet Unexpected Ranger Demand appeared first on Motortrend.

from Motortrend http://bit.ly/2Gb1HHz