Most of us consider a successful weekend off-roading one that ends with a respectable coating of mud on the sills and a story to tell. For the engineering boffins at Ford Australia, however, that’s just a Tuesday morning warm-up. They’ve recently subjected the new Ranger Super Duty to a test so brutal it involved deliberately packing it with over 600 kilograms of mud.
No, that’s not a typo. Six. Hundred. Kilos. That’s roughly the equivalent of asking your ute to carry a full-grown Brahman steer, but instead of putting it neatly in the tray, you smear it all over the underbody, suspension, and engine bay.
This extreme makeover wasn’t for a viral video challenge; it was a scientifically orchestrated ordeal called the “mud-pack test,” developed specifically for the Ranger Super Duty at Ford’s You Yangs Proving Ground. The mission was simple but savage: find the truck’s breaking point by simulating the absolute worst conditions a customer on a remote mine site or an extreme off-road trail might ever face.
“Mud is one of a truck’s greatest enemies,” explains Rob Hugo, product excellence and human factors supervisor at Ford Australia. “It can add significant weight, prevent airflow, and act as an insulator, causing components to heat up much quicker. It’s highly corrosive and can clog up fans and alternators, preventing them from running correctly.”
To replicate this threat, the team didn’t just do a single pass through a bog hole. They spent day after day driving a pre-production Super Duty through a purpose-built mud course, a delightful mix of deep ruts, sticky clay, and bog holes, intentionally allowing the gunk to build up, layer by suffocating layer. They pushed the vehicle to its absolute limit, forcing it to operate while smothered in a thick, performance-sapping blanket of grime.
According to Hugo, this is a cornerstone of their validation process. “Our mud-pack testing is a key part of our ‘Built Ford Tough’ validation,” he says. “So, for the Ranger Super Duty, we knew we had to turn it up to 11. We packed more mud onto this vehicle during development than we ever have before.”
The result is more than just a truck in desperate need of a water blaster. It’s a promise that the Ranger Super Duty has been designed, tested, and validated to thrive when the going gets truly foul. So, while we wait for Ford New Zealand to announce local pricing and specs, we can rest assured that when it does arrive, it’ll be able to handle a bit more than just a muddy farm track.
