Ford Ranger 2026 review: Super Duty - Australian first drive

With one of the best-selling utes in the country, the trend-setting Raptor variant, and now a plug-in hybrid, Ford is seemingly at the top of the ute segment with its Ranger.

When you’re already at the top of your game though, what do you do next?

The answer, it seems, is to create something entirely new for the dual-cab segment, and that’s what Ford aims to do with its Super Duty range.

Perhaps the antithesis of the Raptor and Platinum, the Super Duty pushes the standard dual-cab formula as tough as it can go. And with significant development costs spent here in Australia, and a long consultation period with the intended customers, has Ford created something special?

Let’s find out.

The Super Duty name might be new to Australia, but it’s only worn by the most capable and work-ready Ford products overseas.

It doesn’t just mean off-road capability either, as is the case for the Raptor, it means something deeper, requiring significant upgrades under the skin to bring the Ranger’s GVM (gross vehicle mass) up to a whopping four-and-a-half tonnes, and the GCM (gross combination mass) climbing to a stratospheric eight tonnes.

This means the Super Duty is stepping into capability territory usually only occupied by right-hand drive converted American ‘full-size’ pick-ups, such as the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ford’s own F-150, or even the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series.

The good news is the Super Duty doesn’t cost near as much as the American full-sizers, which start at around $135,000. Instead, the new Ford starts from $82,990 before on-road costs for a Single Cab Chassis, with the Super Cab-Chassis stepping up to $86,490, and the Double Cab-Chassis topping out the range for now at $89,990.

All are diesel V6 powered 4x4s with independently locking front and rear differentials. More on those details later.

It’s worth noting those are before on-roads prices, but the options list is long and can get very expensive. See our story on accessory pricing for the Super Duty range here but even basic additions like the factory steel tray costs between roughly $6000-$10,000, depending on the finish selected.

The official ARB bull bar is also another six grand, although items which are expected to be commonly selected together are conveniently packaged up in the Adventure, Work, and Farm packs. Costs for these vary between nearly $8000 to $22,000, so the Super Duty can get super expensive super quickly.

Even with those options, the Super Duty isn’t a luxurious offering, with cloth seat trim, hard plastic dash and door finishes and vinyl flooring, although many conveniences from the rest of the Ranger line-up remain, like the 8.0-inch digital dash and 12-inch portrait multimedia display. 

Ford argues the seats and refinement levels are an improvement over what most of its intended fleet audience are currently working with, in a thinly-veiled swipe at the comparatively ancient 70 Series.

For private buyers hoping for something a little more plush, an XLT grade both as a cab chassis and with a factory tub is also on the way later in 2026, featuring things like leather-trimmed seats and alloy wheels.

Also helping set the Super Duty apart is an array of clever conveniences for the intended purpose. For example, there’s built-in scales for measuring how close you are to this car’s enormous GVM, a smart hitch feature, which does the same thing but for optimised towing, pre-wired switches for auxiliary electronics in the roof console, and 18-inch truck-style steel wheels which are expressly designed to be bashed back into shape if they’re beaten up on the trails.

In some ways then, value is a buyer beware story. The Super Duty packs a range of awesome work-ready kit, and with option packs that are ready-to-go straight out of the box. However, it’s also expensive when everything is added up, so if you’re a private buyer, it’s worth asking if you really need the capability this thing offers.

The Super Duty dwarfs a standard Ranger on the road. The track is as wide as a Raptor, while the height has increased significantly. It looks almost as though someone dropped a Ranger in Photoshop and told it to increase everything by 15 per cent.

The chunky grille, re-designed blocky fenders to accommodate the extra width, intentionally squared-off wheel arches, and beefed-up ride height with correspondingly larger wheels make the Super Duty imposing on the road.

Like its relatives overseas, the Super Duty logo is three-dimensionally imprinted on the bonnet, and the factory tray being available in a range of finishes (steel, matt black, or colour matching) either adds to the ruggedness or street appeal depending on what the buyer is after.

All of this is not just to make the car look tough, but also to accommodate the depth of changes underneath, because the Super Duty is so fundamentally different from a standard Ranger it’s almost an entirely new vehicle.

Even things as core as the chassis rails have been up-gauged significantly to handle this car’s additional capabilities. Ford has even delved into its Detroit parts catalogue to upgrade almost everything else underneath. It features a front differential from the Bronco Raptor, eight-stud wheel hubs from the F-250, and an upgraded version of the rear axle assembly from a Transit van, although with a unique and up-sized rear differential.

There is also a new transfer case, 130-litre fuel tank, and steel underbody protection which can pivot the entire weight of the vehicle.

Inside looks and feels like a regular Ranger. As mentioned, it comes with all the multimedia amenities and some of the luxuries like soft-touch finishes for anywhere your elbows are going to rest, although the abundance of hard plastics are notable.

Practicality is what the Super Duty is all about, and it starts with the capacities. As already mentioned, this means a 4500kg GVM, which allows a payload of up to 1982kg (for the lightest single-cab variant), and up to 4500kg of towing capacity, and a total GCM of up to 8000kg.

The factory Cab Chassis tray was also part of the design from the beginning, and has dimensions to make the most of the footprint, measuring in at 2580mm x 1950mm for the Single Cab, 2130mm x 1950mm for the Super Cab, and 1830mm x 1950mm for the double cab.

The off-road dimensions are also strong, with an approach angle of 36.3 degrees, a departure angle of 29.3 degrees, and a breakover angle of 26.9 degrees (for the most capable Single Cab variant). Even the ground clearance is increased to between 295 and 299mm - larger in every direction over the standard model.

Wading depth is 850mm and a fully sealed Safari Snorkel comes standard on every body style. Plus, there are heavy-duty recovery hooks wherever you need them if you do end up getting stuck. The stock tyre is an all-terrain General Grabber, so most buyers won’t have to drive straight to a tyre shop either.

The choice of three body styles is excellent from the factory. One suited to every niche, while there are other commendable additions like the pre-drilled hard points in the dash for the fitment of equipment with a factory finish, as well as modern amenities like a full-size power outlet on the back of the centre console in every body style.

Plus, Ford has already reached out to the aftermarket so a range of accessories for both recreational buyers and its target fleet audience are already catered for at launch.

Perhaps the only detractor from what is otherwise a car that seems to cater to every need is the lack of a de-specified interior. With such tough intentions, I can see scenarios where the 12-inch touchscreen could be a liability, and cloth seats could easily get destroyed where a hard wearing vinyl trim isn’t an option.

Again, things don’t look too different from a regular Ranger under the bonnet, with the Super Duty maintaining the same 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel engine and 10-speed automatic transmission, but with some tweaks.

It has less power, producing 154kW (30kW less than the standard V6 Ranger), but maintaining the same 600Nm of torque, and it also has upgraded cooling to support load-lugging, with the front fan upgraded from 800W to 1000W.

The inverter is also 400W to support additional electrics, and mechanically there is a new transfer case, new front and rear differentials, upgraded CV shafts and main drive shaft, as well as an 18-inch brake package.

For emissions compliance, the Super Duty is equipped with both a DPF (diesel particulate filter) and AdBlue. But being conscious of the needs of many heavy-duty users, the brand has added a manual override for the DPF cycle so it doesn’t slow the vehicle down when full power is needed.

The same 4x4 auto system is employed, allowing automatic all-wheel drive to be applied in the standard driving mode. The differentials can be independently locked via the off-road menu in the touchscreen.

The tuning of this engine does make a tangible difference to the drive experience on the road, and while four cylinders are more prolific in the dual-cab space, the 3.0-litre V6 does what it can to bridge the gap between the more standard crop of turbo diesels and bigger V8s in American full-sizers.

As a vehicle that slips into the category above the standard crop of dual-cabs, the Super Duty doesn’t wear an official fuel consumption number.

The story won’t be great. Anecdotally, as we were hopping in and out of several vehicles on this launch test, the computers were all showing over 12L/100km.

To be fair, we spent hours off-roading, towing, and driving in mixed countryside conditions, so hardly merciful, but we were also mostly unladen for the majority of the driving.

With a 130L fuel tank though, the Super Duty should still have plenty of driving range.

A lot of the experience of driving the Super Duty is familiar to the rest of the Ranger line-up. It feels comfortable and refined from behind the wheel, but certainly a size-up from its siblings.

For those who have driven any recent Ranger, this will be very good news. There’s not much about this vehicle that feels properly clattery like some light truck alternatives, and if you’ve driven a Raptor before, the pumped-up width and height will be familiar.

The brand has even managed to maintain an excellent steering tune which balances weight and feel, despite the differences to the hardware underneath. Even the ride quality, something Ranger is so well known for, has carried across to this model, despite significantly beefed-up components.

There is a degree of ladder-chassis jiggle to it, and if you throw some really rough terrain at it, the Super Duty will have the odd harsh moment, but on the whole it’s impressive what Ford has managed to do with such a significantly altered ute.

Over a long day of driving in harsh conditions, the seat quality proved to be comfortable, while ergonomics in the cabin are fairly robust, with a good driving position, physical dials for the climate unit, and easy manual adjustability.

The tweaked V6 engine is an interesting story. Unladen, off-the-road, and at commuter speeds it feels similar to the standard version, but things change when you throw different stress factors at it.

Stomping on the accelerator, for example, elicits a dulled response compared to the relatively athletic performance of the standard engine, with the 0-100km/h sprint (for all the good that will do the commercial audience) significantly impacted. We recorded a (not very scientific) 14.1 seconds.

When a lot is asked of it, either for overtaking scenarios or when laden, the engine creates a fair bit of noise and doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to go anywhere (even chugging up a hill at 60km/h with six tonnes combined across tray and trailer). But it’s the consistency and the throughput of the torque that's been focused on for this re-tune, which Ford says should keep the engine capable of doing these sorts of tasks all day.

The transmission isn't too busy or annoying, smoothly shifting through gears.

The Super Duty made light work of the off-road component of our test drive, making the real-world conditions feel easy, and the way it handled the more theoretically challenging staged tests was impressive, too. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such articulation ability from a leaf-sprung rear suspension set-up, while the clearance angles also remained impressive.

Levels of grip on offer are also impressive from the stock tyre, which importantly also offers a hefty amount of sidewall for the more hairy stuff, and the traction systems doesn't seem to miss a beat.

Safety systems are tame on the country roads we took it on, barely skipping a beat, and are thankfully not at all annoying.

It is big though, so I can imagine parking in a city might not be easy (it’s already hard enough in a Raptor), so again, it’s worth asking if you need this kind of capability before you pull the trigger as a private buyer.

The Super Duty will size-out of ANCAP’s gaze (for now), but it maintains the standard truck’s kit, which maintains its five-star rating awarded in 2022.

Standard features include auto emergency braking (AEB), lane support systems, blind spot monitoring, driver attention alert, and adaptive cruise, but there are also commercial vehicle rarities like front and rear parking sensors and a surround camera suite. There's even an array of nine airbags.

Again, there’s some thoughtfulness here. Ford has put extra time into making the 'Driver Assist Technology Bar' in the rear bumper both protected from off-road hits and designed to be as compatible as possible with the kinds of accessories which will be fitted, so its functions can be maintained. Even things like the 360-degree parking camera, which a 70 Series definitely doesn’t get.

And the mirrors are enormous, which helps with both the tray width and towing.

Ford offers the same five-year and unlimited kilometre warranty as the rest of its range, and servicing, which is required once every 12 months or 15,000km, is capped price.

It costs $469 per visit for the first five years, which is more expensive than the standard Ranger ($379 per visit for four years, then $430 for the fifth), but it’s still not outrageously expensive (and not priced much differently from a HiLux when you consider that model's six-monthly service visits).

I can definitely see the pitch for the Ranger Super Duty. For fleets, having a vehicle with more modern safety, comfort, and thoughtful technologies is compelling when the alternative is an old Toyota 70 Series or a hardly-suitable-for-Aussie-roads full-size American pick-up.

It is beefed up for whatever the trails can throw at it, and more than work-ready without the need for months of conversion work, but for private buyers, do you really need this? For some niche towing and off-road applications it’s an unbeatable factory offering, but I’d argue it’s expensive overkill for most.

Still, Ford’s customer-centric approach is commendable. It will be interesting to see if it can simply create a 4.5T GVM sub-segment for the dual-cab market in the same way Raptor did for performance variants.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.