DaimlerChrysler rolls concept vehicles out in Twin Cities show
The auto show whirl is as close as it gets with the Greater Minneapolis and St. Paul show currently running at the Minneapolis Convention Center. While the show is nowhere near the size of the nation’s big ones — in Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, among others — it does give prospective customers the chance to see all the new vehicles assembled in one place.
It also has an ever-increasing number of concept vehicles on display, headed by DaimlerChrysler, which is the one company that tends to bring those concepts to life.
At the Minneapolis show, DaimlerChrysler has rolled out the Dodge Super8Hemi, the Panel Cruiser, the Dodge Viper GTS, and the Liberty Sport.
All of those started as concepts, with the Panel Cruiser a closed-in body that turns the immensely successful PT Cruiser into a panel truck.
The Liberty Sport will be the new Jeep, replacing the base Cherokee in the next few months.
The Viper GTS is the coupe version of the Viper roadster, and is the street version of the LeMans racer that has dominated endurance GT racing under the hand of such drivers as Duluthian Tommy Archer.
The Super8Hemi is a bit more far-out than the others, but indicates the direction the company could go in pursuit of futuristic sports roadsters.
The auto show runs through Sunday night.
Toyota Highlander plugs into a previously unknown SUV niche
Toyota has done such a good job of figuring out what American car-buyers want that it now has moved ahead of the marketplace. You want economy cars? Toyota’s got ’em. You want luxury sedans? Toyota’s got those, too. You want SUVs? Toyota not only makes them, it makes more different varieties of SUVs than you may have known exist.
For example, you want a big and durable and historical sport-utility vehicle, you’ve got the Toyota Land Cruiser. If a more modest sized SUV is a better fit, the 4Runner is a solid piece of machinery. Smaller still? How about the RAV4? Then you can branch into Toyota’s Lexus line and get the giant LX470, or the compact and sleek-looking RX300.
That just about covers all the niches in the SUV world, but Toyota didn’t stop there. For 2001, along with completely redoing the RAV4, Toyota has come out with an entirely new Sequoia, which is a Toyota version of the Lexus LX470, and now it introduces the new Highlander.
I recently got a Highlander for a test, right during our last big snowfall. It was perfect timing, even though I was slightly confused when I first got it. From the proliferation of Toyota SUVs, I couldn’t remember whether the Highlander was a large or small, middle or crossover, expensive or moderately priced SUV. I was pleasantly surprised to learn it is a Toyota-version of the RX300, which is one of my favorite SUVs on the market.
The difference is that the Highlander is similarly based on the Camry platform, but while the RX300 is rounded front and rear, the Highlander has more of an SUV-ish squareness to the rear, coming off a nicely tapered nose.
It also stays at or just under the magical $30,000 range, which is sort of the breaking point of SUVs these days.
While the usual path is to build a Toyota, and then upgrade it and make it a bit more expensive with the Lexus nametag, this time Toyota went the other way. The RX300 doesn’t make any pretense about being a rugged off-roading specialist. It will handle some light off-roading, with its full-time all-wheel-drive, but it is primarily for the urban jungles, where 90 percent of SUVs are driven about 99.9 percent of the time.
You can load up an RX300 to the mid-$30,000 range, which isn’t bad these days.
But the Highlander squares off the corners, lightens up some of the accessories, and pares down the price tag, which makes the Highlander both more flexible from a utilitarian standpoint, and more affordable from an every-family viewpoint.
The Highlander I test drove had all-wheel drive, although it also can be purchased in front-wheel-drive only, which probably would work in most applications. But Up North, in this season of endless snow, all-wheel drive worked just fine, thank you.
There is no low-range lock on the Highlander, which is the single most prominent method for discerning whether it is serious about going off-road. It doesn’t need it, of course, because Toyota has the Land Cruiser, 4Runner, LX470 and Sequoia to handle those assignments.
Power comes from the familiar dual-overhead-camshaft, 3.0-liter V6 engine that Toyota has used in the Camry, 4Runner, RX300, pickup trucks, and numerous other vehicles. It is as close as any standard engine comes to being bulletproof, and it delivers more than adequate power and fuel efficiency.
The V6 turns out 220 horsepower and 222 foot-pounds of torque, which is plenty for a midsize vehicle.
The all-wheel-drive system has a center viscous-coupling device that distributes torque to the front and rear axles, varying the mix whenever slippage suggests it should send more to the other axle. It worked smoothly and gave no hitches of hesitation or jerkiness, now matter how much ice and snow we confronted.
The traction was good, and the handling, with the smooth stability of the car-like chassis and MacPherson strut suspension with stabilizer bars fore and aft. It doesn’t feel as tall as it looks, with an always poised and firmly planted stance.
Neatly styled alloy wheels, and a stylish front end, with large headlights covered with glass lenses and a prominent, fairly tall grille. The lines blend well into the side, with a styling contour riding over the front wheelwell and another one at a slightly lower level above the rear wheelwell, just enough to prevent it from looking too slab-sided.
Inside, the Highlander is efficient, friendly, and built to work without being pretentious or gimmicky. There is substantial room with the two bucket seats up front and a rear seat that will hold three without trouble. That leaves a lot of storage space at the rear.
An unusual styling touch is that the Highlander has the normal instrument panel and center dash array to house the audio and heat-air controls, outlined in woody plastic trim. Below that center dash area there is a large compartment that houses the automatic shift lever, ahead of the usual floor-shift location, and contained in this compartment that also has a little lower cubicle.
With typical attention to detail, Toyota armed the Highlander with all the latest safety gizmos. It has traction control available, and a skid control device as well, along with the latest antilock brakes and a brake-assist control that senses, from the severity with which you jam on the brakes, whether you’re attempting to make a panic stop or not, and can give you full braking force, or at least the maximum that the antilock will allow.
Airbags are standard, and side airbags are available.
Keeping the options down to a minimum can keep the sticker price down to around $27,000, and even less if you choose the base 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine. The V6 will be the basis for sales projections that might be aggressive, but the Highlander fits in well in a niche right between the RAV4 and the 4Runner. That’s a niche I didn’t know existed, but it works, nonetheless.
Denali gives Yukon XL a luxury edge over Chevy’s Suburban
Playing “Know your SUVs” is a game that can pretty well tax your imagination these days, but everybody knows what a Suburban is, and that its slightly more reasonably sized brother is the Chevrolet Tahoe. It gets a little more complicated when you realize that there also is GMC, the truck arm of General Motors, and that GMC has a Yukon (which is a slightly altered Tahoe), and a Yukon XL (which is a slightly altered Suburban).
But GMC gets to do something special for 2001, and that is to offer the Yukon in a Denali version, which is basically a Yukon swathed in so much luxury you almost feel guilty driving it. Also, the Yukon XL — the longer, Suburban-sized Yukon — also has a Denali upgrade available.
That is the one I got to test-drive, and it was impressive. Very impressive. For an absolute monster truck, it fulfilled every imaginable excess you can dream up, and a few extra ones beyond normal imagination.
I’m not even sure what-all colors the XL Denali comes in, because the test vehicle was black, a rich, glossy black, and that will do, just fine.
The name Denali comes from the huge national park in central Alaska. I’ve been to it, and it also is the actual name natives gave to Mount McKinley, just a 100 miles or so to the south of the park. The actual park is larger than the size of Massachusetts, to give you an idea of the scope of things up there. It is rugged terrain, and contains a couple of magnificent lodges. We can’t be sure why GM chose Denali for the name of the new luxury SUV, but the luxury of the Denali park’s lodge, and the enormity of the park itself might be good reasons.
While keeping the basic concept of the previous Yukon and Yukon XL intact, General Motors thoroughly upgraded the vehicles, and part of the new look of the Yukon XL Denali is a new grille. Instead of horizontal bars, or egg-crate crosshatches, the new Denali grille is a finely perforated sheet of, I would presume, aluminum, or some other silvery metal.
The effect, between the glass-encased dual headlight fixtures, is almost a solid sheath of silvery stuff, and on the “Onyx black” paint, the silver makes a dramatic touch.
The new Yukon has three rows of seats, so the XL has three rows of seats and all sorts of storage space. In the Denali version that I test-drove, the first two rows were plush, leather-covered bucket seats, with a big console, and virtually every trick thing you could think of putting on a luxury SUV.
That includes remote keyless entry switch, dual frontal airbags, side-impact airbags in front, automatic headlights, front and rear air-conditioning and heat controls, power heated outside mirrors, programmable door locks, an 11-speaker Bose audio system with a 6-CD changer and steering-wheel remote switches with which to blast it, light-sensitive adjusting inside mirror, compass and outside temperature readout, rear defogger and wiper-washer. The 10-way power seat controls for driver and front passenger also are standard, as is a 32.5-gallon fuel tank, and GM’s superb OnStar navigation and touring aid system, with a whole battery of helpers answerable by push-button.
Options on the test vehicle included electric sunroof, and the rear buckets. In all, the Yukon XL Denali lists for $49,559 as tested, which really isn’t that far out of reach considering the prices of luxury SUVs out there.
Of course, we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff, yet.
There is full-time all-wheel-drive, with an Autoride suspension, and excellent handling aided by 17-inch alloy wheels. The four-speed automatic transmission shifts firmly and smoothly. Also, a stainless steel exhaust system, heavy duty trailering package, and foglamps and front tow-hooks also are standard.
But under the hood, GM has plunked the very Corvette-ish 6-liter V8. It churns out 320 horsepower and 360 foot-pounds of torque, which would pull a small building off its foundation.
When you climb aboard and snuggle down into those soft leather seats, you are prepared for luxurious travel, but you might not be prepared for the dragster launch that sends the Denali hurtling forward with great authority.
Compared to a lot of other SUVs, the Denali, especially the XL version, is huge. It is 219.3 inches long, compared to the standard Yukon Denali’s 198.8 inches, and it is 75.7 inches tall, which means you probably won’t be looking across the roof at anybody of normal size.
In the kind of endless-snow winter we’ve had this year, driving the big Denali is a nice way to travel in secure luxury, and with the full-time all-wheel drive, you don’t have much problem with slipping and sliding around.
There are some features that bother me, although they certainly are nitpicks. Sometimes you think that in the process of adding more and better features and options, sometimes they get carried away and certain things don’t fit in quite right. I felt that way about the remote switches on the steering wheel for the audio system. The reason for having them is so you can get accustomed to reaching them with your thumb and adjusting the volume or changing stations or modes without taking your hand off the wheel.
But the controls are located so far inboard that you’d have to have a thumb about 6 inches long to reach them. So, of course, you have to take your hand off the wheel and then your eye off the road to adjust the remote switches. Once you’ve had to take your hand off the steering wheel, you’ve defeated the purpose of having remote switches on the steering wheel.
The other thing is that GM continues to pump more and more power into those big V8s, while GM lobbyists convince the government that they can’t make them any more efficient, so emission and economy laws shouldn’t be toughened. The EPA estimate is 12 city, 16 highway, but I got between 11 in combined driving, and a best of 13 during a sustained freeway drive.
But all in all, if you have a family the size of a small army, or you take the family on long trips through the wilderness, or you frequently tow a large trailer, you can’t do it with much more luxury than you’ll find in the woody and leather Yukon XL Denali.
[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The Yukon XL Denali is the size and platform of the Chevrolet Suburban, but with all sorts of luxury upgrades inside and out, and a 320-horsepower 6-liter V8.
2/ The new frontal look features glass-encased headlights and a grille that looks like you could use it to shred carrots for salad.
3/ The instruments and steering wheel are well-positioned, but whoever placed the remote audio switches had longer thumbs than most normal humans.
4/ For sheer enormity, the Yukon XL Denali is 22 inches longer than the already-large Yukon or Tahoe, yet it has great power and good agility. ]]]]]
Tires reduce rear-drive Lincoln LS to lots of spinning in storm
The cliché doesn’t work anymore, when some factory says: “Take a spin in this oneÂ…” Although, it would have been appropriate for the beautiful Lincoln LS sedan I test-drove this past week. I took all sorts of spins in it, and the super-high-tech traction-control system just sat in there chattering along as if it enjoyed my consternation.
Let’s back up. The Lincoln LS is Ford Motor Company’s best attempt ever at making a world-class luxury sedan with sporty-driving tendencies. It is sort of an adjacent project with Ford’s recently-acquired Jaguar factory, with Ford building the Lincoln LS while Jaguar builds its luxury sedan, then they exchange some components. Among those, Ford sends their dual-overhead-camshaft V6 to England for use as the base engine in the Jag, while Jaguar, which built an exceptional 3.9-liter V8 on its own, with dual-overhead-cams and foru valves per cylinder, sends that to the U.S. to be plugged into the LS as its optional upgrade engine.
That’s the way the test car came equipped. With power sunroof, power front bucket seats, all sorts of heated-seat, climate-controling gadgetry, and European driving flair, the LS costs about $35,000, although as tested, mine was a tad over $39,000.
It sat there glistening in its dark green color, perfect for the week leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I figured. That was on Sunday, and I was in the Twin Cities. We had thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the Lincoln LS on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But on Monday morning, early, I had to drive to Duluth, and later Monday I’d have to drive back to the Twin Cities for personal reasons.
You remember Monday. It snowed. And snowed. The Lincoln LS has its lively V8 up front, but it is rear-wheel drive, although Lincoln folks are quick to tell you that rear drive is no problem, regardless of conditions, because of the fabulous sophistication of the traction-control systems nowadays. Folks who say that have never — ever — set foot in Minnesota during snow season.
It had Firestone tires, all-season supposedly, and they tracked fairly well, although I was on adrenaline-overload in a few slithery spots on the freeway from the Twin Cities until I got to Duluth. Then I took 2nd Street to Lake Avenue, thinking that would be a good hill to climb. The LS thought so too, as did its traction-control device, but the Firestones wanted no part of it.
I got about a half-block, then the LS sat there, with its traction-control system, which keeps feeding power to the wheel that has better traction, having something of a nervous breakdown. You see, neither wheel had ANY traction, and, as a wise, old friend once told me: “Even the best traction-control system needs some traction.”
I spun and churned until I had wriggled over to the far right, to let other traffic that DID have traction go up and down the hill and clear the way. Then I pulled one of those movie-style spinorama moves — when traffic was clear, I put it in reverse, then swung a rear-end-around 180, which left me facing downhill, heart in throat.
Later that day, I got stuck out in the bus stop in front of the Duluth Budgeteer office. Level surface, there, but covered with ground-up snow about axle deep. Took me about 10 minutes to spin and slither myself free, alternatingly shutting off the traction-control and reengaging it.
It was embarrassing, to say the least.
The Firestones look impressive, but obviously they have the kind of high-speed, high-performance, long-wearing capability of many top-of-the-line tires, but they don’t maintain their flexibility in cold, and they didn’t spit out the snow efficiently enough to get me up even moderate hills. Car companies choose their tires carefully, but the snow-belt market is too small to convince them that what is normal elsewhere doesn’t work up here.
After failing to scale Lake Avenue, I went on to 6th Avenue East, then up, finally cutting right at 9th Street. A couple blocks later I pulled in at Foreign Affairs, the place I wrote about a couple of months ago, because they sell Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires there — the Finnish tires, that are designed to go through all manner of snow and foul weather. I have a set on my own car, and the trouble with test-driving other cars, is I don’t drive mine enough.
Besides, every test-drive is a new adventure, and perhaps a column, I figure. I pulled off and walked inside Foreign Affairs to talk to Mark Strohm, and sure enough, he said a lot of people had been coming in and buying those great tires with the crazy name, which run great in nice weather, and have the almost mystical ability to also run great, with minimal slipping and super traction when it gets cold. It’s no secret that normal drivers, exceptional drivers, and novice drivers all should be looking into putting such a set on their car for winter, even though the last couple of winters haven’t required extra help. This one does.
Strohm said Hakkapeliittas have been selling steadily, with the biggest upturn in business coming from people with mid- to large-size U.S. sedans, who have finally come to grips with the concept of coming to grip with the street, and come in and order Hakkapeliittas.
Now, I’m not saying special winter tires would have helped the Lincoln LS become a super-handler. Buyers must make that decision themselves, but don’t assume that just because a new car has traction control, and the salesman said it would go through anything, that rear drive can be as easy to drive as front-wheel-drive cars.
For features and amenities, the Lincoln LS did a great job. Smooth-riding on the freeway too, and the audio system is amazing. Steering is precise, and I thought the car did well in maintaining its stance in all conditions. Until it tried to spin on ice and snow.
The seats are firm as well as comfortable, and the silver rings around the top of the cupholders are a nice touch. There is a trip computer on the speedometer panel, and the swift V8 delivered 21 miles per gallon on city and freeway driving combined. The LS has foglights under that distinctive smiling grille, and everything from the quietness of the interior to the easy operation of all controls, and the great comfort of the bucket seats drew attention. The interior is extremely quiet, which is important to Ford, because playing in the segment with several BMW, Mercedes and Audi models can be a daunting task.
Ford seems undismayed, and the LS is a worthy car for the whole world. I like the styling, although I am just lukewarm on the circular smiling-mouth grille, and I flat don’t like the chrome outline around the rear license-plate indentation, but otherwise it is a sleek and well-designed shape. But if you were going to buy one, living in the Great White North, you would definitely want to put some all-out winter tires on those neat, 17-inch alloy wheels.
Meanwhile, no matter how much I enjoy the best front-engine/rear-drive vehicles, if I owned one, I would have to have a front-wheel or all-wheel drive alternative — also with snow tires — so I could leave the one that won’t go in snow at home when it snows. Which, this year, seems to be almost every day.
{[[[cutline:
1/ The Lincoln LS is a good-looking, strong-performing luxury sedan, but its rear-drive stance and not-ready-for-prime-wintertime tires reduced it to near helplessness in the past week’s blizzard.
2/ The interior appointments help make the Lincoln LS a top U.S. alternative to some of the top European and Japanese luxury/performance sedans.
Redesigned Ranger has an Edge, but doesn’t give up old values
Trucks have taken over the automotive world, or at least they’ve gained the upper hand by gaining over half of it.
As a kid, I remember one of my best buddies learned to drive in an old pickup truck. It was old when he first rode in it, and older when he learned to wrestle that long, lanky floor shifter into the next gear — always with some sort of “graunch” sound. It wasn’t very fast, but it got where it was going. It had strength to pull stuff around their homestead, and was perfect for hauling rocks, but my buddy’s dad prefered to drive it all the time, everywhere, compared to a car.
As cars became more and more sophisticated, which is to say expensive, it got to be trendy for somebody who had to have a new car but couldn’t afford one to buy a pickup truck instead, because they were a lot less costly on the sticker. Made sense, because they were only a cabin that would hold three, or four if squeezed, and a box at the rear. Suspension didn’t have to be cushy, it could be built to stand a lot of weight, and then soften the front up a bit.
But then trucks started moving up the scale, too. They got costlier and costlier, and more and more loaded up with fancy stuff. Where there used to be one size — a pickup was a pickup was a pickup — the number and variety of pickups grew.
Big pickup trucks, then little trucks, then medium sized trucks, and pickups were joined by vans, then minivans, and onward and upward to sport-utility vehicles, which came normal sized, then larger, then larger, and then smaller.
So where are we now? Dozens of SUVs dominate the scene, along with about a dozen vans and minivans, and then loaded-to-the-teeth pickup trucks costing over $30,000.
I wonder, if my buddy’s dad were still alive, what he’d think about the new proliferation of pickup trucks. Something tells me he’d stand there, silently, looking over everything as if he were totally impressed, and then he would get that little twisted sneer he favored, and slowly shake his head. In my mind’s eye, he then climbs back into that old, but sturdy, pickup and head on home.
American car buyers, and American car companies, seem to have a defensive attitude about the extremely competent foreign companies that make great vehicles. How many times have you heard an American company boast about “European style,” or about a car being so well put together and armed with features that it can challenge the best foreign brands? With pickup trucks, we have the true “American sports car” in my opinion. The pickup is an American invention, for American farmers and ranchers at first. But pickups also have become personal-statement vehicles. I know men, and women, who want a pickup because of the security and coziness of allowing two, and maybe three, riders at a time. No back seat, just like a sports car, and while taller and less sporty in handling and performance, the same effect as a sports car from a personal standpoint.
A while back, I got the chance to drive a new Ranger. It wasn’t at all like my friend’s family pickup of decades past, but it was a lot like wearing a whole bunch of tight-fitting dress shoes, and then finally coming home and pulling on the old, familiar tennis shoes. The kind the trendy folks on both coasts call “sneakers.”
The Ranger is Ford’s compact pickup. It came out a long time ago, and led the trend toward small pickups, which only made sense, because the big Ford F150 had become the largest-selling single marquee in the country, and Chevy’s big pickup was moving on up toward second.
So with a lot of folks choosing country homes, but something less than farms or ranches, they had need of a pickup truck but no longer needed the bigger-better full-sized, monster pickups. And, with pickups becoming fashionable suburban vehicles, compact pickups were perfectly sized for the next truck advancement.
So the Ranger moved on up to become the largest selling compact pickup, and one of the nation’s top 10 single vehicles in sales. The Explorer was later to join that group, which also included the Chrysler minivans, making trucks the holders of about six of the top 10.
Car companies, of course, learned that you could still make pickups for a lot less expense than cars or SUVs, so they kept making cabins-with-boxes, and jacked up the prices for great profits. The beauty is, you can still find an inexpensive, base-line pickup, but the ones that are loaded up, and coast in the mid-$20,000 range, are definitely a real treat.
And yet, the compact pickups are still trucks, and haven’t gotten the softer, more luxurious treatment.
The test-Ranger I drove was a perfect example of where we’re at, in the pickup-biz, these days. It was the “Edge” model, which is a styling treatment on the redesigned Ranger.
It came in a blue that was about cobalt, but intensely bright enough to glow at you with cool style, especially when the snow was newer and whiter.
The Ranger Edge came in the extended cab version, which, to me, is only practical these days. There is a third door on the driver’s side, that opens only when you have the front door open, and it opens hinged at the rear. Yes, there are little jump seats you can put in the rear section, and they function for short hops. But mainly, whenever I drive a pickup truck without an extended cab, invariably I wish there was more storage and stowage room.
In any conditions, but in Up North winters for sure, you don’t want to toss your travel bag or your computer or camera bag in the pickup box, naturally. And you can set it on the second seat, but not if you happen to have a passenger.
So an extended cab allows you to toss your garment bag, computer, camera, attache case, extra jacket, and whatever into the space behind the bucket seats, and have something resembling spaciousness up front.
The new Ranger has a distinct new look, compared to the popular unit it’s replacing. A restyled and modernized front end, with wraparound, color-coordinated bumpers blending into the grille, and with foglights built into the plastic-covered lower bumper housing.
The last time I drove a Ranger, I was disappointed in its highway manners — spoiled as I’ve become to trucks that cruise easily as car-wannabes. The new one was no disappointment at all. It has the 4.0-liter V6 engine, with Ford’s 5-speed automatic transmission, and it delivers 205 horsepower and 240 foot-pounds of torque.
So you can pull up stumps on the farm, haul heavy things, thanks to the revised suspension, and still sail along with the top-cruising-speed traffic with ease.
The reason is that Ford took pains to take an old and sturdy engine, reinforce the bottom end to handle more revolutions, then installed overhead camshafts, one on each bank. That allows the V6 to rev freely, with its horsepower peak at 5,250 RPMs, and means it cruises effortlessly, where a comparable pushrod engine would be screaming.
The 5-speed automatic is also a gem, designed by off-road racers who thrashed it in the ultimate overload training. It shifts smoothly and easily in routine use, and yet when you stomp it, it allows the Ranger Edge to run on up to the redline before upshifting — no graunch.
The bucket seats also are comfortable and supportive, and the interior appointments look good and feel good. A switch on the dashboard allows you to switch into 4-wheel drive with no problem, and without any jerks or fear of damage when you see a tough hill or icy condition ahead.
An in-dash CD player adds to the pleasure of the audio system, which booms impressively in the confines of the pickup interior. Leather seats add luxury, and even the stuff they use on the dash and doors also looks good instead of cheap. Cupholders and a console between the two main seats add to the user-friendliness.
In the rear box, you are limited by the fact that it’s a compact pickup — or are you? Sure enough, the Edge model had one of those odd-looking aluminum-bar devices in the rear of the box. If you lower the tailgate and lock it in, you can flip the bars over, and magically extend the hauling length of the box by about two feet.
Sure, the price has crept up. You can still find a Ranger for cheap, or you can load one up and spend nearly $30,000 with all the goodies. Either way, the Ranger seems secure in its status in the top 10 of automotive sales with the new model. And while almost all the other trucks have gone over the top with features and expense, the Ranger is still like those comfortable old shoes you slip on at home.
My buddy’s dad, if he was here, would smile and figure he finally found a worthy replacement for his old beast.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The Ranger in stunning cobalt blue, shows off the styling changes of the new “Edge” upgraded model.
2/ The new Ford Ranger is a worthy workhorse, and compares its new nose to an older model Ranger.
3/ Inside, the extended cab’s third door makes way for a whole bunch of luggage and carrying space.
4/ A flip-over bar arrangement can be used to extend the hauling length of the pickup box in the Ranger. ]]]]]
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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