Ford’s SA’s First-of-a-Kind Stamping Facility Forms Part of R15 Billion Investment in New Ranger Production

• Ford has invested R15.8-billion in its local operations and part of that is in its new stamping facility as part of the new Ranger bakkie production
• 67 parts are produced by the automated stamping system and is the first of its kind in South Africa to handle the 200 000 vehicles per year produced at Ford's Silverton facility
• The size of the stamping facility is the equivalent to almost 1.5-times the size of a standard football and at full capacity is capable of producing 272 tons of steel per day

Ford South Africa announced its never-before-seen stamping facility at its Silverton Plant to produce steel for the assembly of its new Ranger bakkie is in production.

The company has invested a staggering R15.8 billion in the Pretoria-based assembly facility, and the scale of the stamping area measures 10 320m2, the equivalent of almost 1.5-times the size of a football field, Quickpic reports.

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The new Ranger bakkie will go into production later in 2022 and Ford opted to bring the stamping process in-house to have tighter grip on quality control, EngineeringNews reports.

Rhys Davies, Site Transformation Manager at the Ford Silverton Assembly Plant says:

“Most importantly, it allows us to deliver vehicles of the highest quality to our customers in South Africa and more than 100 markets around the world.”

Watch a video and go inside the new facility below:

Getting into the nitty gritty of the stamping facility, inner and outer body panels of the next-generation Ranger is produced for the Single Cab, SuperCab and Double Cab.

Five tandem presses do the hard work to stamp the flat sheet metal into the boy panels. Ford says the entire line is fully automated and is capable of working at 16 strokes per minute.

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Ford’s new SA-built Ranger will debut a host of new tech, here’s what to expect

Ford's popular Ranger will launch in South Africa sometime this year, the company hasn't pinned down a definite date as yet, Briefly News reports,

However, they did share more information on the technology we can expect to see once it arrives on local shores.

For starters, the analogue display makes way for a 20cm fully-digital instrument cluster displaying the speedometer, tachometer and driving modes among other information.

The instrument cluster also incorporates body-style avatars and different layouts can be chosen displaying driver-assist technologies and extra gauges. The different on-road and off-road driving modes carry a different theme when selected.

Source: Briefly News