The ever-popular Hilux is the favorite pickup in South Africa, selling 31,263 units last year. The Ranger finished 2020 on a distant second with 18,846 units in this market, and both are very competent on paper.
The question is, can the Hilux with the top-of-the-line powerplant and four-wheel drive win a drag race against the Ranger? To make this challenge a little more interesting, our friends at Cars.co.za have pitted these pickups against each other on a clay surface in the Northern Cape region, the largest and most sparsely populated region of the southernmost country in Africa.
But first, we should go through a few technical specifications. Toyota’s bakkie is a double-cab affair with the 2.8-liter turbo diesel, a four-pot engine that delivers 150 kW and 500 Nm of torque from 1,600 through 2,800 revolutions per minute. That’s 201 horsepower and 369 pound-feet over in the United States, which is more than enough for a mid-sized pickup truck.
The Blue Oval-badged workhorse is a little more stressed on full song because the EcoBlue four-cylinder diesel is a 2.0-liter unit featuring a bi-turbo layout. Rated at 157 kW (211 horsepower) just like the Ranger Raptor and the same amount of torque as the Hilux, the American challenger also happens to flaunt a 10-speed auto compared to the Toyota’s six-speed box.
As for the most important piece of information for straight-line performance - be it grippy tarmac or loose clay - the Ranger weighs almost 200 kilograms more in this particular configuration. As it happens, these nicely-equipped trucks come in at 2,220 kilograms (4,894 pounds) and 2,209 kg (4,870 lb).
The Hilux appears to hook up better at launch, then pulls away and continues pulling away, creating a truck-length gap as it crosses the finish line. With the Ranger’s10R80 automatic in sport mode, the ‘Yota launches better again, but the Ranger eventually pips it by the smallest of margins.
As a brief refresher, 2022 is the final model year for the Ranger as FoMoCo prepares to unleash a Bronco-derived redesign. Similar to the full-size Tundra for the U.S. market and brand-new Land Cruiser, the Hilux and Tacoma will both switch to the TNGA-F platform for their next gens.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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