Ford’s new Ranger is the first pickup tested by the Euro NCAP safety organization to achieve a five-star top rating. The Ranger’s overall score was 89%, which is not only the best ever recorded by a pickup, but one of the highest regardless of class.
Surprisingly, given that it is a pickup, it also managed to receive the best rating ever for pedestrian protection among the cars tested by the Euro NCAP since it was established in 1997, with an 81% score.
Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratingen, said: “With such good pedestrian protection, the Ford Ranger is undoubtedly raising the bar of safety in the category of pickup trucks, which had until now not proven to be the safest.”
Ford’s chief engineer for Asia Pacific and Africa, Adam Frost, commented on the Ranger’s results: “On the all-new Ranger we did more crash simulations than any of our prior programs to ensure that all parts of the vehicle’s safety were optimized.”
In particular, Ford engineers started with simulating more than 9,000 virtual crashes to optimize the Ranger’s structure and safety system before moving on to testing the pickup. There, they completed 110 actual crash tests and 410 system sled tests with actual prototypes.
The pedestrian protection result was achieved thanks to a front bumper with energy-absorbing materials and a new, “hexageneous” under-bonnet structure that reduces the chances of a pedestrian head injury.
