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With around eight million on the road, Ford’s F Series pickup has been the best-selling vehicle of any type in the USA every year for the past 16 years. Customers buy it, not necessarily to shift bags of cement or bales of straw, but as cheap personal transport; the family’s second or third vehicle.

In Britain it’s a different story. Pickups remain humble workhorses bought by builders, farmers, and market gardeners, with construction companies and local authorities among the fleet operators. These are some of the markets Ford is targeting with its new Ranger.

Ranger marks the Big Blue Oval’s return to the sector in the UK after a gap of six years. Its predecessor, the P100, which used a Sierra-derived cab, died when Sierra died, and Ford has been in no particular hurry to launch a successor.

That’s because, unlike the USA, total annual pickup demand in Britain is small, hovering at between 8,000 and 9,000 registrations.

Ford predicts it will sell 3,000 Rangers in the model’s first full year, rising to 5,000 in year two. It calculates that its re-entry will boost the market to around 10,000 units in the first year, which implies that an initial 1,500 sales or so must be captured from rivals.

The one-tonne payload Ranger will be bumping up against four important competitors – Mitsubishi’s L200, Nissan’s Pick Up, Toyota’s Hilux, and Vauxhall’s Brava. The latter is a rebadged Isuzu.

Also worthy of mention is the inexpensive Indian-built Tata Loadbeta. Like the others, it’s available with two- and four-wheel-drive, but unlike the others uses a surprisingly sophisticated pushbutton electric system to engage drive to all four wheels.

In addition, Volkswagen, Skoda, Fiat, and Daihatsu sell half-tonne payload pickups, while Land Rover’s Defender is sold in pickup guise.

Ranger’s most significant opposition may turn out to be Mazda’s new B Series, also now on sale. Both models are virtually identical – they use the same Mazda diesel engines – apart from their badges and different front grille, headlamp, and wheel arch treatments. They’re the fruits of a joint venture company set up by Ford and Mazda in Thailand.

Each partner has a 45 per cent stake in Auto Alliance Thailand with the remaining 10 per cent held by two Thai partners, Sukosol Mazda and KPN Group.

Ranger and B Series – sold as the Fighter in some countries – are assembled in a brand-new plant 75 miles south of Bangkok. It can produce 100,000 vehicles annually on two shifts, excluding CKD kits, and should build 50,000 this year.

Thailand is the second biggest pickup market in the world after the USA. The rugged little load shifters account for more than 60 per cent of all registrations.

Mitsubishi, with its L200, and Nissan manufacture pickups there, the latter in a joint venture with Siam Motors.

Ford is selling four Ranger derivatives in the UK; rather a lot given the modest volumes involved. They’re being distributed through the network’s 152 Transit specialist dealerships.

The Regular Cab comes with a two-door cab, with the choice of either two- or four-wheel-drive, and powered by a 78bhp naturally aspirated 2.5-litre diesel. Available solely as a 4×2, and using the same engine, is the four-seater Super Cab, which comes with a stretched version of the Regular’s cab.

The fourth model in the line is the five-seater 4×4 four-door Double Cab, equipped with a turbo charged version of the 2.5-litre pumping out 109bhp.

“The 4×2 Regular Cab will be the best seller, taking 35 per cent of Ranger sales,” says Ford commercial vehicle manager Mike Platts, “while the Double Cab looks set to account for 25 per cent of registrations rather than the 15 per cent we at first anticipated.”

That’s despite Double Cab and Super Cab having a serious fiscal drawback. Because they have side glazing to the rear of the driver, they are treated as cars rather than commercial vehicles for VAT reclamation purposes, and that makes retrieving VAT problematic for corporate purchasers.

“We are 95 per cent certain that we will get exemption from this situation for both vehicles, however,” says Platts.

Discussions between the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders and HM Customs & Excise may result in pickups with a payload of 1,000kg or more being treated as commercials when it comes to VAT reclamation, even if they are fitted with rear side glazing. That will benefit Super Cab, which has a 1,120kg payload, but may not help Double Cab, which with a 993kg payload falls just below the magic figure.

But Platts is also aware that, despite the national policy, local VAT offices may be prepared to let VAT be claimed back if the vehicle’s owner can prove it is used solely for business purposes.

For a humble workhorse, Ranger is remarkably well equipped. Standard goodies across the range include electric mirrors and windows, central locking, and driver and passenger airbags. Air conditioning is standard on Double Cab. The only factory optional extra is metallic paint at £210.

Platts says this policy has been adopted to avoid over-complicating life for the customer and to provide an appealing high-specification package. It also has the happy benefit of not over-complicating life for Ford when it comes to ordering vehicles from the factory.

As a consequence Ranger prices run from £10,500 to £15,350, excluding VAT.

Mazda is taking the opposite tack with B Series in the UK. Its lower standard specification leaves drivers and passengers having to wind up their windows and adjust their exterior mirrors manually, but this means prices are lower too.

They start at a highly competitive £9,570, and go up to £14,730. The Mazda line mirrors Ford’s, apart from the B Series not being sold here with a stretched cab.

Mazda’s policy could turn out to be the correct one, although the steamroller weight of the Ford marketing machine will doubtless ensure that Ranger sales targets are met regardless. Cash-conscious farmers and builders may prefer to do without a fancy specification, and pay less for their transport.

Perhaps surprisingly given its no-frills stance, Mazda is also selling a 4 Action version of the B Series aimed at the leisure market. At £16,170 plus VAT it comes with alloy wheels, air conditioning, a CD player and the turbo charged 2.5-litre, and will compete directly with Mitsubishi’s similarly specified L200 4 Life.

Both vehicles represent an attempt to kick-start the leisure market for pickups in the UK, something which Platts doesn’t believe exists to any great extent this side of the Atlantic.

“There will never be a leisure market in the way there is in the USA,” he says. “I don’t see leisure demand expanding significantly at all.”

In the USA there’s no social stigma attached to driving a pickup, he says.

For work or leisure, the modest volumes involved beg the question as to why Ford is bothering to offer Ranger here in the first place.

The answer is that it’s readily available in right-hand drive, and represents incremental business in an increasingly competitive light commercial market. Five thousand units are, after all, 5,000 units. And when you add on all the dealer-fit options that Ford is making available – everything from load-bed liners to polished stainless steel side steps – it starts to stack up into a profitable proposition for the manufacturer and its dealer network.

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