Ford’s current Ranger pickup isn’t as compact as today’s Club Cab edition. It’s also way more expensive. Let’s see if that price makes this a Ranger that will never be alone.

If you are a fan of the movie, Back to the Future, then you no doubt fondly remember Marty McFly’s incredulity over Doc Brown’s decision to make a time machine out of a DeLorean.

The customizations made to the we looked at yesterday may not have been as pitch-perfect as Doc Brown’s creation, but it was interesting nonetheless. Perhaps in the same way an odd fungus under a toe might be interesting. There was almost zero interest in the car’s $7,500 price, however, and it went down in a massive 95 percent No Dice loss as a result.

One has to wonder if the good folks at the Ford Motor Company much like having the Ranger in the company’s lineup? After all, there’s an argument to be made that every Ranger sold is an F-Series that is left on the lot, and that’s not good for Ford’s efforts at keeping the bigger truck at the top of the sales charts. The introduction of the smaller, and sassier Maverick unit-body truck below the Ranger’s spot in the model range probably didn’t do the mid-sizer any favors either. Sales of the current generation of Ranger run somewhere around 100,000 a year here in the U.S. That may be a lot of trucks, but that number represents only about a third of what the older, smaller Ranger managed in sales back in its heyday. In 2003, which was near the start of the older model’s sales decline, Ford still managed to move over 200,000 Rangers out the door each year. We’re going to take a look at one of those today. We’ll see what all the fuss was about and if the old Ranger still has some of the mojo left that at one time made it the top-selling small truck on the market.

This offers a Club Cab and a 4X4 drivetrain. That last bit of kit is sort of interesting since the Edge package was originally designed to offer 4X4 looks on the cheaper 4X2 chassis. Ford added 4WD to the options list halfway through the Edge package’s model run, thus completing that circle.

Other fun features here include a 4 liter SOHC edition of Ford’s Cologne V6 and a five-speed manual sourced from Mazda. The V6 put out a respectable 207 horsepower and 238 lb-ft of torque this model year, the highest numbers you could get in the compact truck at the time. According to the ad, the mechanicals are still reasonably fresh, having only pushed the truck a mere 86,000 miles over the course of its life.

The rest of the truck looks to be in pretty good shape for the years and those miles. The monochromatic Zinc Yellow paint still pops and aside from a small dent in the passenger door and what looks to be some chewing gum (eww) on the front bumper, it all looks pretty straight underneath. The Cooper tires appear to have a decent amount of tread and run on factory alloy wheels.

Inside, things are just as well-kept, although the stickers and snood on the steering wheel might need to be dumped at the earliest opportunity. The same could be said for the ill-fitting carpet dash cap, but I think that may be a preventative measure considering the truck’s current sunny Arizona home. A couple of cute jump seats are mounted in the back of the cab and can be accessed by the convenient half-doors that open suicide style.

The truck comes with a clean title and the ad explains that the truck is for sale because the present owner’s son bought a new truck making this one redundant. I wonder if the new one was another Ranger?

Considering its size and features, this may be the perfect truck for someone looking to get into the pickup lifestyle but not wanting to dive in head-first. At $7,000, could it also be a good value in doing so?

What do you think, is this Ranger Edge worth that $7,000 asking justas it sits? Or, is this a small truck with a price that’s too big for its britches?

You decide!

Phoenix, Arizona, , or go if the ad disappears.

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