A friend of mine just told me that the ranger is a rebranded Isuzu... Tell me this isn't so.

 

No, Isuzu and Ford are separate. Never heard of such a thing, and apparently the internet hasn't either. Consider also that the Ranger has been around for several decades. 1983 I believe is when they first started production.

He may be referencing the Mazda B Series, in which case, is the reverse. A mazda B series is a rebranded Ranger, just enough changed to call it a different truck even though they're still basically the same thing.

There is a possibility your friend is right, but the chances of that are slim to none and I believe slim just hailed a taxi. I do not know everything, but I can say the above with a fairly high degree of confidence that I'm right.

 

No. The Isuzu trucks are all Chevy based platforms shared between them and GM.

 

So no, no association with Izuzu

Mazda was making a smaller pickup since 1961, B-series, Ford started importing these in 1972 as the Ford Courier until 1982, in 1983 Ford started making and selling the Ranger in North America.
Mazda B-series was still made off shore.

Mazda started making the BT-50 in 2006, larger than the B-series/Ranger and just slightly smaller than F-150.
Ford(and Mazda) were building these off shore and it was also referred to as the International Ranger, Ford made it official in 2010 as the Ranger T6.
Since these are essentially an F-150 in all but name I doubt we will see them imported or built in North America.

Still no Izuzu involved


Izuzu and GM got together in September 1971, by 1972 GM had a 34% stake in Izuzu, the 1972 Chevrolet LUV becomes the first Isuzu-built vehicle to be sold in the United States, the LUV is a small pickup truck

 

Izuzu sold a version of the S 10 for a few years sort of like Mazda and Ford with the Ranger. I think it was the Hombre. Had a different grill, but you could tell it was a S10

 

I dunno. I heard some rangers were made in mexico-some things are metric

 

Ford switched to metric a long while ago, mid-80's saw many fasteners in metric.

The Metric Conversion Act was signed into US law in 1975 but was a voluntary conversion.

 

Makes you wish they'd go either all Metric or all Imperial. Bugs me to no end trying to figure out if a bolt is metric or imperial and then what size it is.

 

They are all metric now, but in the '80s and '90s you would find Imperial and Metric in the same vehicle.
Had to get rid of all the Imperial nuts and bolts, couldn't just throw them away, lol.

 

That would explain why my interior bolts are metric and my shocks, lug nuts and everything else are all imperial.

 

I like have both sets of tools now.
When a nut or bolt gets rounded off a bit I can tap an opposite socket on it usually.
So rounded imperial gets a metric socket
Rounded metric get imperial.