Photo : Brian Williams

We speculated in January that Ford might be cooking up a truck smaller than the Ranger. Now, a Ford spokesman has confirmed they will show something this week, alongside a separate report that Ford is making a Bronco pickup to battle the Jeep Gladiator. Update: The “truck news” is that it’s a truck emoji.


First, let’s look at some tweets from Ford spokesman Mike Levine, who loves Ford and loves Twitter, though hard to say in which order.


A new small Ford truck, something akin to the original Ranger which is smaller than the new Ranger, which is huge? I would love it. And it would fit (somewhat) of an “unmet” need in the market, since every truck these days is a one-million ton monstrosity, even the supposedly small ones.

Or could Levine just be referring to a Bronco truck, which Automobile magazine said yesterday they have a hot exclusive on?

Ford is planning to launch a pickup truck based on the 2021 Bronco SUV to compete with the just-minted Jeep Gladiator. The Ford Bronco pickup truck is scheduled for production in July 2024, according to AutoForecast Solutions, which indicates design and engineering began no more than a few months before the Jeep pickup launched.


I’m guessing not, since this alleged Bronco truck is “scheduled for production” in July 2024, the timing of which you should laugh at but also so far away as to be unlikely to be whatever Levine’s talking about.

So what is it then? Probably a new Ford Courier, which a Ford executive confirmed would happen in January and the name of which Car And Driver reported Ford has applied to trademark in the U.S. It might also be electrified somehow. It will probably be based on the Focus platform.


And it makes sense under Ford’s new strategy of making only trucks, SUVs, and Mustangs. I can’t imagine a more boring name than “Courier” though, even if it has some history.

Update Tuesday July 16th, 7:28 pm EST:



Just kidding, this new short video seems to indicate Ford is introducing some kind of truck based emoji. Whatever it ends up being, it’s looking like this whole thing was a gag.




Update Wednesday, July 17 7:55 a.m.: It’s an emoji.