Many Australians rely on the Ford Ranger and its Everest SUV spin-off, but does Ford lean on its best-seller a little too much?
Ford Australia celebrates its centenary in 2025 having fittingly sold more than 100,000 vehicles locally in the past 12 months for the first time in sixteen years.
Yet almost 90 per cent of the sales success came from one platform – and only two nameplates.
The Ford Ranger – the best-selling vehicle in the country for the second consecutive year – sold 62,953 units in 2024, handsomely beating the next-best Toyota HiLux’s 53,499 and Isuzu D-Max’s 30,194.
Yet the Ranger made up 62.8 per cent of Ford’s total sales, and while that’s down on 2023’s 72.2 per cent share, the HiLux was only 22.2 per cent of Toyota’s final 2024 figure, an Australian record of 241,296.
MORE: Australian new-car sales in 2024 – Annual record barely broken despite drop in demand
The Ford Everest SUV uses largely the same underpinnings and mechanicals to be a Ranger SUV in all but name and body shape behind the B-pillar.
It too had a record year with 26,494 sales to make up 26.4 per cent of Ford’s overall result.
With both cars closely related, Everest and Ranger combined to contribute 89,447 of the brand’s total 100,170 sales – a significant 89.3 per cent.
It means the single platform accounted for almost nine of every ten Fords sold in Australia, with only 10,723 sales (10.7 per cent) spread across the seven other nameplates in its showrooms.
That equates to an average of 1532 annual sales of each non-Ranger and non-Everest Ford.
MORE: Toyota sets annual sales record in Australia – VFACTS 2024
For perspective, Ford’s third-best seller was the Transit Custom, which posted 3427 sales, making up a mere 3.4 per cent of the brand’s total while being 23,067 sales further behind Everest.
Comparing the top-ten best-selling brands of 2024, Toyota’s best-seller – the Toyota RAV4 SUV – made up 24.1 per cent of its sales.
The most popular model from third-placed Mazda saw its CX-5 SUV – with a new-generation set to be unveiled in 2025 – make up a similar 23.8 per cent of that brand’s total sales.
It shows Mazda and Toyota have a much healthier spread of models in showrooms than Ford.
Andrew Birkic, who has been Ford Australia President and CEO since 2020, offered a veiled response when asked whether Ranger’s significant chunk of the brand’s sales was an issue or not.
MORE: Ford hits 100,000 in Australia for the first time in 16 years – VFACTS 2024
“Selling more than 100,000 vehicles in 2024 is a fantastic achievement, and testament to the hard work by the Ford Australia team, and our strong national dealership network,” Mr Birkic told Drive.
“It’s also thanks to a vehicle line-up that has proven popular in a variety of segments.”
In Ford’s defence, Isuzu Ute Australia (IUA) sold 48,152 with a two-vehicle strategy – its D-Max ute and its spin-off, the MU-X SUV – direct rivals to the Ranger and Everest.
Yet Isuzu does not offer any other models in its showrooms, meaning its energy – and resources – are focused on its core products alone.
MORE: Isuzu Ute posts sales record, third consecutive Top 10 finish with only two models
“With a streamlined product mix of just two vehicles, the D-Max ute and MU-X SUV, IUA’s focused product mix strategically ensures that our vehicles directly cater to core customer expectations and streamlines our distribution network to focus on the two largest segments in Australia,” an IUA spokesperson told Drive.
Toyota, by comparison, enjoyed eight years of HiLux being its best seller, taking over from the Corolla – but with both outsold by the RAV4 in 2024.
Yet Ranger – which took over from the Falcon in 2013 to be the brand’s best-selling model and has been every year since – is not so far off Ford Australia’s historical sales performances.
When the Ford Falcon topped the Australian market in 1982 – the first time it had done so – its 84,184 sales made up 60.4 per cent of the car maker’s market-leading 139,318 total.
The last time Falcon was on top was 1995 with a similar 59 per cent share, making up 81,366 of the brand’s total 137,862 sales that year.
Ranger winning the sales race in both 2023 and 2024 is the first time a Ford has done so since the Falcon went back-to-back in 1992 and 1993.
At the time, Ford relied heavily on Falcon but the locally manufactured Ford Laser small car was also a top ten best seller in both 1992 and 1993.
In 2025, Ford Australia has the Tourneo – a passenger version of its Transit Custom commercial van – as a rare addition of a new nameplate, although there will be a significant spotlight on the mid-year arrival of – again – the Ranger PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle).
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