We were once a true country. A country where outstanding performance such as Chevy 454 SS, Toyota Tacoma X-Runner And GMC Syclone wandering on the streets. Performance pickup trucks still exist today just like Ram TRX and Ford F-150 And forest ranger Raptor models but with an off-road focus. Things might have been different if Ford had been first on the performance car bandwagon in the late 1980s.
Make no mistake, Ford wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of a high-performance pickup truck. That honor belongs to Dodge and it Lil Red Express Truck in 1978. But the first modern street-ready performance pickups didn’t come until the early 1990s, starting with Chevy’s 454 SS in 1990. About a year before that, however, Ford was Study something special.
First appeared in the spring 1990 issue of Small truck magazine, Ford created a Ranger SHO. This is not a non-functional show car. This is a fully operational and drivable prototype. As the SHO moniker implies, tucked under the compact sedan’s hood (this SHO is based on the second-generation Ranger, when it was still small. By comparison, the regular SHO short bed measures almost 3 inches. half shorter than the Honda HR-V pickup) is the same 3.0-liter 24-valve V6 engine as the Taurus SHO. It produces 200 horsepower and 220 pound-feet of torque.
Of course, the engine is not stock. Ford fitted it with a revised intake with electronic fuel injection and a freer-flowing exhaust through custom two-inch tailpipes. Power is sent down through a Borg Warner five-speed manual transmission with a modified shifter taken from the Mustang GT and a Ford Performance clutch. Ford also added a limited-slip differential and custom driveshafts.
The performance suspension not only lowers the truck but also helps with its handling. Ford Performance’s double I-beam suspension system along with Koni shock absorbers help the car corner almost without body tilt. All those modes really make for a scary little pickup. Retired Ranger vehicle engineer Phil Schilke appears to have participated in this race. In a Ranger owner forum post, he describes how it had a 10,000 rpm speed limit and how it would dust Corvettes. “The engine tech disabled the rev limiter so I could get 10,000 rpm under my feet. Can dust off any Vette on the street in first gear! Lots of fun and sports car handling,” he said.
The SHO Ranger even looked the part of a performance truck, at least in the late 80s/early 90s. It was painted a bright white that you could see a mile away, European-style ground effects with European bumpers and deep front spoilers. The bed has a thick sport bar protruding from it while it is surrounded by a square exhaust pipe and a red “SHO” badge on the bed door.
The interior was described as luxurious, which if you compare it to a regular Ranger at the time, it was. There are sport bucket seats covered in red fabric and vinyl that also covers the door panels and headrests, the sound system is upgraded and water and oil temperature gauges are added to the stock setup.
Sadly, Ford seems to be just experimenting with the Ranger SHO because Small truck said Ford has no plans to bring it to market. It’s nice to see at least some engineers have thought about doing something like this. If the Ranger SHO actually makes it to market, the performance truck game may look a little different than it does today.
