Styling
It's not often we find ourselves lusting after a commercial vehicle. Especially one finished in grey, either (even if £600 Conquer Grey is a rather swish shade of the otherwise-drab hue). But just
look at the Ranger MS-RT. It's fantastic. It sits 40mm lower than any other model of Ford's workhorse one-tonner, running on a set of utterly exquisite deep-dish 21-inch diamond-cut alloys with a black centre and silver rims. Add in its thoroughly hench blistered wheel arches (rendering it 82mm wider than other regular Rangers), a couple of beautifully integrated spoilers (one on the trailing edge of the double cab, the other part of the tailgate), side skirts, a front splitter, and its mean black radiator grille plus MS-RT badging fore and aft, and we cannot think of any other truck in history we'd want more than this one. Not even Marty's masterpiece from 41 (yes; forty-one) years ago. Great Scott!
Interior
Any Ranger of this generation has a classy cabin and the MS-RT, with its few model-specific enhancements, is no exception to this rule. The deeply sculpted and superbly supportive seats, complete with distinctive blue pattern and MS-RT logos, are probably the easiest giveaway, as are more MS-RT graphics in the screens. The stitching on said chairs, as well as on the chunky sports steering wheel with a 12 o'clock marker, is blue, although on the door cards it's white, but despite this trivial inconsistency everything looks plush and feels good to the touch. The 12-inch SYNC 4 touchscreen is retained, while there's a crisp digital instrument cluster for the driver to enjoy, and generally there's an upmarket feel about the MS-RT's interior - as in, there's precious little hint this is related to the sort of bog-basic, steel-wheeled Ranger you might find clagging its way around a British building site.
Practicality
You don't suffer any loss of the Ranger's versatile abilities as a result of the MS-RT specification. It can still seat five (sort of) in its double-cab interior and then it'll take more than a tonne of payload in its flatbed, or tow up to 3,500kg of braked trailer if you so require. There's even a hardtop canopy (lid) if you want it, that'll fit over the load area despite the spoiler on the back of the Ford's cab. And our variant had the power roller shutter for the bed too, although that's not a cheap option at £1,800 on its own.
Performance
Our test MS-RT was fitted with the luscious 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel engine that you can get in many of the top-end Ranger models, complete with a ten-speed automatic transmission. That motor kicks out 240hp/600Nm and thus blesses the Ford with the ability to hit 62mph from rest in just 8.7 seconds, yet also lay claim to 28mpg - however, for those needing more grunt and even better consumption figures, the MS-RT can now be specified with the 281hp/697Nm plug-in-hybrid drivetrain if you'd prefer.
We'd stick with the diesel, though. It's a lovely powertrain, with rich torque and a nice, aggressive-sounding rumble to it when revved. We still maintain the ten-speed auto is complete ratio overkill on a vehicle which only revs a few thousand rpm at a time, mind, and that the Ranger would be fine with either eight, or even six gears instead, in all truth. But the V6 is certainly a great match for the MS-RT's appearance; as in, the strength of its performance is not a let-down in the wake of the butchness of its bodywork. We also drove this Ranger for more than 570 miles in a week, during which time it pretty much matched its official economy with a 27.6mpg overall return, so this is a performance pick-up that won't break the bank to run.
Ride & Handling
Oh. Oh, dear
god. It appears that someone signed the Ranger MS-RT off but forgot to check if the development team had fitted any suspension to it first. This is one of the most uncompromising and brutal vehicles we've ever travelled in for ride comfort, and unfortunately that then adversely colours the entire remainder of the MS-RT's dynamic experience.
It has got suspension, of course, as we were just being hyperbolic in the paragraph prior. This Ranger has a 40mm-wider track width for enhanced grip and stability, while the springs and dampers are said to have been optimised to get 'the ideal level of handling and comfort'. Pshaw! This includes firmer shocks at the front, a retuned set-up at the rear, and that aforementioned 40mm drop in ride height.
Sadly, though, the MS-RT is unrelentingly - and unpleasantly - firm at lower speeds, to the point of being unbearable. It's not that skittish behaviour you'd normally expect of an unladen, leaf-sprung, one-tonne pick-up, but rather a leaden, crunchy inability to deal with any sort of surface imperfections with any degree of civility or sophistication at all. It hasn't quite taken the 'honour' of being the worst-riding car of the 21st century in our eyes, as that millstone remains around the neck of the truly appalling
MINI John Cooper Works Aceman - and there's another reason for coming down in favour of the Ford on that score, as the Ranger becomes
just about tolerable at motorway pace (although it can occasionally still smack into expansion joints at 70mph with a sudden violence that's quite startling) - but the MS-RT is so discomfiting that it gets worryingly close to scooping the unwanted accolade nonetheless.
The idea of this uncompromising set-up is supposed to be so that the MS-RT is unsurpassable for handling in the world of pick-ups, but regrettably the complete lack of pliancy in its suspension at sub-50mph speeds rather renders that consideration a moot point; so much so that we don't really need to say that this steroidal-looking Ranger has slightly-too-slow, slightly-too-heavy steering, and an inactive rear axle to boot, that would rob it of the highest levels of interaction anyway.
No, it's the sheer jittery, thumping nature of the MS-RT which undoes it kinematically, because on a lumpen surface that's typical of a British B-road, the driver never, ever feels in tune enough with the Ranger to really commit it to a series of fast, complicated bends with any degree of verve. Ironically, the better road-going performance model in the Ford's family is the monster
Raptor - we can see what the Blue Oval was going for, by setting the Raptor up as its off-road champ and then adding the MS-RT for road-going prowess, but the longer-travel, far-superior Fox dampers on the Raptor make it much more preferable for battering along a British back road.
And so the brittle suspension just leaves the poor old widebody Ranger in a dynamic no-man's-land, because the Raptor is emphatically the greater performance vehicle, in all conditions and on all surfaces, than the MS-RT is, while if you just want a nice, easy-going and comfortable-to-ride-in variant of the pick-up truck, then either the
Platinum or
Wildtrak derivatives of the Ranger can deliver in spades, while they're both offered with the same 3.0 V6 turbodiesel powertrain too.
Value
Another bad area for the Ranger MS-RT, because in this specification with a few options fitted and the VAT heaped on top (you're surely not going to be buying this as an ex-VAT commercial, now are you?), the Ford is the best part of 66 grand. And no matter how highly we think of other characteristics of the MS-RT, to spend that amount of cash on something that would probably turn you into a long-term patient of a chiropractor seems bonkers to us.
Verdict
We so wanted to love the Ford Ranger MS-RT, because it looks absolutely terrific and it promises some proper dynamicism in a market sector not well regarded for such things. However, without first undergoing a root-and-branch review of the ultra-gritty suspension set-up it has been blessed with and retuning the pick-up accordingly, this is an expensive machine that we simply can't reasonably recommend, no matter how great it looks on the outside. And when you add in the fact that there are three other Rangers, in and around the MS-RT's price and performance range, that do things better than it can, then the case for choosing this bully-boy truck over any of its siblings becomes even flimsier. Just like your spine would, if you ever decided to buy the MS-RT as is, and then spent your entire time bouncing around in it in the 30-50mph zone.
