Do they fold up like F-150/Super Duty?

They do fold up, but when they are folded up, the seats still take up most of the room and the storage bins under the seats create a VERY unlevel area - not suitable for dogs (especially medium/large dogs) for sure.

My understanding is the this Ranger is a mid-cycle vehicle of-a-sort and that the next-gen Ranger will be a newly engineered vehicle due in about 3 years. I hope I'm right about this; if not, I'm sure that I'll be corrected.

Evidently demand for the Ranger is huge, per Jalopnik

Remember all of those years when enthusiasts mourned the loss of the Ford Ranger? Our time is now. President of Ford’s North American Operations, Kumar Galhotra, told reporters in Detroit on Wednesday that the company has such demand for the new Ranger that it’s already planning “massive overtime” to meet it. Ford considers its production capacity completely see-saw’d in the wrong direction, per a Bloomberg wire report:

Ford and General Motors Co. are slashing production of sedans and small cars, as automakers struggle with the collapse of demand for the traditional family car that has left them with excess factory capacity to make 3 million of those unwanted models. At the same time, they are boosting production of trucks and sport-utility vehicles to meet booming demand.

Galhotra said Ford is now putting 90 percent of its capital expenditure into producing trucks and SUVs. He didn’t provide further details on the planned production increase for the Ranger.

I’m sure this pendulum will never swing back, and that gas prices will always be low, and Ford will never be caught out again.

Along with radical swings in product offerings at times, comes interesting products. Imagine a world where you just produce the same small, medium and large vehicles with the same name for decades? Sounds like Honda.


Meh, I will take the occasional mis-step in product offerings that comes along with trying out many new and exciting ventures. Risk can be a good thing.


As for Ranger, glad to hear. Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

More on new Ranger success,

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/01/31/...T-dhqR8wwnowF0


The 2019 Ford Ranger has only been on sale for about a month, but sales are already beyond what Ford expected. Demand is so high that Ford is planning to run overtime shifts at the plant, according to an Automotive News report.

Kumar Galhotra, Ford president of North America said this to media yesterday concerning the Ranger: "Based on the orders coming in, and based on the hand-raisers, we think the demand's going to be so strong, that starting in February our assembly plant will be going into massive overtime."


More at link above......

All this success for Ranger, imagine how people will react with new Bronco and small Bronco. It certainly won't hurt having a fresh new Escape and Explorer in the mix as well. And of course all the hybridization. My point, I think that in the near term as sedan sales which generate almost no profit exit the showroom, Ford brand will have plenty of high margin products back filling the vacuum. In the long term, nobody knows. Yet.

Any word on a Hybrid Ranger on the redesign?

Well, there is a hybrid Bronco in the works, soooo........

Isn't the Bronco on the next gen Ranger platform, and if so wouldn't that mean the Ranger hybrid would likely no arrive until the next gen Ranger does?