Ford South Africa has achieved a massive milestone this month, as it has just created its one-millionth Ranger bakkie at its Silverton Manufacturing Plant in Gauteng.
Between 2000 and 2024, the Blue Oval made hundreds of thousands of examples of the fan-favourite bakkie for both the domestic market and for export around the world, all while making a big contribution to South Africa’s economy.
A number to celebrate
The Ford Ranger has a long legacy in South Africa encompasing three generations that have racked up numerous awards over the years.
“It’s fitting that we celebrate reaching and now rapidly surpassing the one-millionth locally produced Ranger during Ford’s Centenary year in South Africa,” said Neale Hill, president, Ford Motor Company Africa.
“Production of the first-generation Ranger commenced in 2000, which coincided with the official return of Ford Motor Company to South Africa. Both of these events were defining moments in the brand’s local history, and set the tone for Ford’s firm commitment to the country.”
The first generation was manufactured between 2000 and 2011 and initially only catered to local buyers before the company began its foray into the export scene in 2008 with both left and right-hand-drive models for the rest of the African continent.
Notably, these Rangers were not the only models produced by Ford at the time as the facility had a multi-platform assembly line for both passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, yet this didn’t stop the bakkie from clearing 100,000 units by the time its run came to an end in 2011.
2004 Ford Ranger
It was in the second generation that the bakkie really took off, however, a more ambitious global export programme meant the manufacturer was now shooting for a goal of 110,000 units every year.
All the while, Ford’s separate Struandale Engine Plant outside Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape was receiving its own investment to support the assembly of the 2.2l and 3.2l TDCi powerplants.
By 2019, technological advancements gave way to the development of 2.0-litre single-turbo and bi-turbo diesel drivetrains, and later the first-ever Ford Ranger Raptor – a game-changing model that popularized the idea of the high-performance double cab.
By the time the second-gen Ranger’s cycle came to an end in 2022, a staggering 873,751 units had been made in South Africa – two-thirds of which were for export.
2011 Ford Ranger
Enter the third-generation Ranger, which began life at Silverton in November 2022 and is currently in production at an incredible rate of 720 vehicles per day.
Various investments and expansions to Ford’s local operations mean that the plant has a new capacity of 200,000 units per year – the highest volume of any manufacturer in South Africa.
“To achieve these unprecedented volumes, we adopted a no-compromise approach,” said Ockert Berry, vice president Operations, Ford South Africa.
“We constructed our first on-site stamping plant, built the only Ford-owned and operated chassis plant in the world, installed an all-new body shop, and completely modernized the Ranger assembly line.”
The chassis plant was built in the Tshwane Automotive Special Economic Zone adjacent to Silverton and is the result of a public-private partnership between the automaker and the national and provincial governments.
Today, roughly 5,200 people are directly employed by Ford South Africa, and it is estimated that another 60,000 jobs exist at various parts of the value chain that supplies the parts for the bakkie.
Many of the individuals employed at Silverton and Struandale are also part of multi-generational families that have worked at the Blue Oval.
The first third-gen Ranger makes its way off the assembly line in 2022.
It’s thanks to all of these efforts mean that the Ford Ranger has officially reached the one-million unit mark at Silverton.
To put that in perspective, if the one million Rangers were all lined up bumper to bumper, they would stretch all the way from the Silverton plant in Pretoria to Egypt’s southern border more than 5,300km away.
Ford Ranger in South Africa
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