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FORD’S Australian-developed 4×4 Ranger has eked out a sales lead – just – over arch rival Toyota’s 4×4 HiLux this year in a battle that has gone toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow for almost five years in Australia.

Although Toyota owns the 4×2 ute market, with its rear-wheel-drive HiLux leading the Ford Ranger equivalent 8261 to 2853 in year to date sales, the real battle for the hearts and minds of Australian vehicle buyers is in the 4×4 segment where farm and business meets family and fun.

At the end of August, official VFACTS sales data shows the 4×4 Ranger had achieved 24,992 sales – a lead of 88 units over the 4×4 HiLux’s tally of 24,904.

This gives the Ranger a 22.1 per cent share of the 4×4 pick-up segment, compared with the HiLux’s 22.0 per cent, seemingly setting up a grandstand finish to the year.

August 4×4 ute sales were remarkably close between the pair – 2884 Rangers to 2887 HiLuxes – for a gap of just three vehicles.

But this is not a recent phenomenon. Since 2015 when the 4×4 Ranger closed the gap on the HiLux, the two top-selling models in Australia have gone neck-and-neck.

In 2018, the 4×4 HiLux pipped the Ranger 38,580 to 36,883, with December sales split by just 16 units, 3013 to the HiLux to Ranger’s 2997.

The year before, Ranger won the battle, 36,937 to 35,297, while in 2016, the HiLux took the honours, 31,076 to 30,880.

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All the way through, the two combatants have both had segment market shares hovering about the 21-22 per cent range, often separated by just 0.1 per cent.

This year, they are both 10 percentage points clear of the next best, Mitsubishi’s 4×4 Triton, on 12.2 per cent segment share.

So far this year, Ranger 4×4 sales are up 0.4 per cent on last year, with variants such as the off-road-oriented Raptor helping to keep the range pumping.

HiLux 4×4 sales have dipped 0.8 per cent, which is a great result in an overall market down 8.0 per cent.

The HiLux and Ranger 4×4 utes have between them taken light-commercial vehicles to the top of the sales charts over the past three years, dislodging traditional passenger cars from the top step – an achievement that no SUV managed to pull off, despite the sales trend to soft-roaders.

Come December 31 this year, the HiLux will be declared the winner again by virtue of its 4×2 sales which Ford will almost certainly find impossible to make up.

But the battle to watch will be in the 4×4 arena where it might boil down to the marketing might of Toyota versus Ford’s true-blue engineering.

If ever there was a 21st century equivalent to the Holden Commodore-Ford Falcon sales battles of yesteryear, it is in the 4×4 pick-up segment.

By Ron Hammerton

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