At $5,500, Is This 2001 Ford Ranger SuperCab A Super-Duper Deal?

According to its ad, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Ranger has done 200,000 miles. It has a few boogers to show for that high number but is claimed to be mechanically sound. Let’s see how sound an investment it might make.

Imagine someone bringing a baby goat to a dog park. That’s an image that’s not out of the realm of possibilities but is incongruous nonetheless. Equally oddball in many of your estimations was yesterday’s hot-rodded 1978 Chrysler LeBaron coupe. Tarted up and tatted out, it still rocked the clunky ’70s Chrysler style — including a half landau roof. At $16,000, that was just too much to bear, and the LeBaron bombed in an 84 percent No Dice loss.

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Let’s say you have a number of baby goats to take to the dog park. Not so many that might require a full-sized pickup, but enough that a car won’t handle the herd. Happily, a compact pickup like today’s 2001 Ford Ranger SuperCab might fit the bill in such a highly plausible real-world scenario.

The Ranger is having a bit of a moment right now. Ford currently offers a mid-sized truck wearing the nameplate, but that doesn’t seem to have the fanbase as does the OG compact version. Heck, the old-school Ranger even has its own dedicated Reddit community. Could these trucks really be that endearing?

This one has 200,000 miles on the clock, which is remarkable considering that it rocks the dubiously reliable Cologne 4.0 SOHC V6. This engine is based on the long-running OHV V6 but with the original camshaft replaced by an intermediate shaft off of which the two cam chains are driven. The tensioners for the cam chains are a common failure point on these engines, and, being at the back of the motor, their replacement is an engine-out job.

When working properly, as this one is claimed to be, the 4.0 makes a healthy 210 horsepower and even better 245 lb-ft of torque. Here that’s backed up by a four-speed automatic and rear-wheel-drive.

Wrapped around all that is a SuperCab/short bed body in two-stage red over a gray cloth interior. The four-door cab offers four-up seating or just a lot of lockable and easily-accessed storage space. A bed extender makes the lined bed in the back all the more usable.

The bodywork on the truck shows well but does suffer a sizable dent in the passenger-side rear door. There doesn’t seem to be any paint-break-through, or reduction in function, but it’s fairly ugly nonetheless. The rest of the body looks fine and the wheels, along with their new tires, look perfectly serviceable.