Compact pickups used to be everywhere, but the survival rate of this hardworking breed is low.
This Ford Ranger somehow escaped the fate of its brethren.
Its combination of a manual transmission and a V-6 engine is desirable, even though you wouldn't call this a sport truck.
A compact pickup truck is kind of like a lawn mower: It's a tool for a job, not something you expect to show up in a museum. It might not be subject to the same abuse as a full-size pickup on fleet duty, but it's expected to pull its weight. A few might have a gentle first owner with a penchant for around-the-house DIY, but after a decade or so, a second or third owner will beat the absolute tar out of them.
Thus, an original-condition survivor is a bit of a rarity. Here's one such unicorn: a 1986 Ford Ranger regular cab with just 31K miles on the odometer, and it's up for sale on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos). Ordered with a five-speed manual and a V6, it was an unusual spec from the factory and has only become rarer as its fellows have been used up and sent to the scrapyard.
1986 is a good year for a Ranger. It's the first generation of the truck but also the first year you could get it with fuel injection, making it a little more pleasant to drive. This example has only the basics: power steering and power brakes, but no air conditioning. It's a truck. Just roll down the window.
Originally a mid-level trim for the F-Series, the Ranger was launched as a standalone compact pickup truck in the early 1980s. It replaced the Courier, a Mazda-built badge-engineered mini-pickup that was a response to the success of Toyota and Datsun small pickups.
Ford will happily sell you a Ranger today, but it's a much larger, more sophisticated, and more expensive offering. Its humble progenitor was not built for off-road capability, like the high-flying Ranger Raptor, but rather to ferry home a load of bark mulch or lumber, or get loaded up with landscaping tools. Including, yes, a lawnmower or two.
Under the hood is a 2.9-liter V-6 making 140 horsepower, which was also available in the contemporary Bronco II. The five-speed manual wakes things up a bit, but this is a pretty grunty little six, good for 170 pound-feet of torque below 3000 rpm. Disc brakes up front add a further level of daily drivability.
This is not a potential off-road rig like a contemporary Marty McFly–style Toyota pickup, nor is it the basis for a minitruck-style showpiece like a Nissan/Datsun might be. It's an honest survivor, a relic from a time when genuinely compact pickup trucks were plentiful and cheap.
Settle into that vinyl bench seat, load up the bed with a cooler and maybe a folding chair, and cruise on over to the lake with the windows rolled down. Most Rangers of this era were worked to death. This one deserves a bit of a summer vacation.
The auction ends on August 6.
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