Ford Ranger Wildtrak X is a bakkie that thinks for you

Last month, I said The Citizen Motoring were planning a trip down to Knysna and the Garden Route over the holidays in our Ford Ranger Wildtrak X and that is exactly what we did.

It gave us the perfect opportunity to explore all that our long-term bakkie offers a family on a long, open road trip. The most obvious benefits of being a double cab are space for the humans and cargo for days in the rear load bin, under the electrically operated shutter.

There are multiple tie-down points, so securing your luggage is no problem and everything is kept dry. There is one tiny issue with a solid shutter. If any of your cargo don’t fit under it, you have no wriggle room like you would with a good old-fashioned tonneau cover. We didn’t have this problem.

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Safety first

Fully packed and out on the road – some 1 200 km of it – is where the technology and safety offered by the Ford Ranger Wildtrak X is truly appreciated.

It is a war zone on our roads. In 2021 and 2022 more than 12 000 people were killed on them, which comes to an average of 34 people a day. And not just over the holidays when it’s the only time anybody pays attention to the carnage.

Besides the seemingly suicidal tendencies of impatient drivers overtaking straight into the face of oncoming traffic, one of the biggest contributing factors of crashes on long journeys is driver fatigue. Here, the Ford Ranger Wildtrak X offers the likes of adaptive speed control coupled with a lane-keep assist function. So driving at the speed limit while staying in your lane, and identifying slower-moving traffic and braking is all done for you.

Not having to stress about these issues keeps you that little bit mentally fresher. This allows you to concentrate on other lifesaving things you need to be doing on the road, like constantly scanning to see what other drivers are doing around you.

And if you do push too far and the Wildtrak X detects that your steering inputs are getting too erratic, a warning to stop for a break will pop up on the dash.

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Plenty of power

What also helps when travelling long distances is that you spend as little time as possible on the opposite side of the road when overtaking. In this case, the 154kW of power and 500Nm of torque offered by the 2.0-litre bi-turbo diesel engine in this Ford Ranger makes easy work to get past slower-moving traffic and out of harm’s way.

But there is a caveat to having lots of power and that is it needs to be fed. Trying to keep this Ranger’s fuel economy under 12-litres per 100 kilometres around town and 10 L/100km on the open road is a bit of a challenge.

But I guess if you have the R1 million for a large, full-house, luxury, 4×4 double cab, fitted with chunky all-terrain tyres, factory racking system and side sills, which can take you anywhere in absolute comfort, then this is a small price to pay.

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Ford Ranger Wildtrak X goes off-road

For next month’s update, we will be taking our pavement princess into the bush to get a little bit dirty. There we’ll put the standard fitment hardware and technology on board that makes going off-road easy to the test.

The Ford Ranger Wildtrak X 2.0-litre BiTurbo 4×4 10AT retails for a suggested R1.01 million. The price includes Ford Protect, comprising a four-year/120 000km warranty, four-year/unlimited distance roadside assistance and five-year/unlimited distance corrosion warranty.

Customers can buy service or maintenance plans up to eight years or 135 000km.