The Ford Ranger that's beloved by many in the US is gone with no immediate plans to replace it with the all-new Ranger that's now on sale in Australia, Brazil and other global markets. That's a real shame, but according to a new report coming from Car and Driver, Ford is now supposedly looking into the possibility of replacing the old US-spec Ranger with a car-based pickup that would have a cheaper base price than the larger F-150.

According to Ford Truck's marketing manager Doug Scott, who spoke with potential customers, there's still a market for such a vehicle. Ford realized that it wouldn't need a traditional body-on-frame chassis; a car-based unibody setup would do as long as it were to have a payload capacity of around 1,000 lbs. and a towing capacity of around 3,000 lbs. Scott stated that "we know there is a market for a true compact truck... and we think we know what it looks like." That's still short of a production green-light, but where there's a demand, a supply will grow to fill it.