Vehicles: A double-cab pick-up is the favourite way of moving men and machinery spares for many farmers and contractors. Andrew Pearce takes the chance to eye up two established numbers — Ford’s Ranger and Mitsubishi’s L200

A double-cab pick-up is the favourite way of moving men and machinery spares for many farmers and contractors. Andrew Pearce takes the chance to eye up two established numbers — Ford’s Ranger and Mitsubishi’s L200 IThe double-cab pick-up market seems to have stalled recently. Sure, most makers have tweaked their basic product and added tricked-out variants — but there’s been no spanking new product for a while.

That’s set to change over the next couple of months as VW releases its Amarok onetonner and Ford rethinks the Ranger, but until then it’s business as usual. Speaking of which, the Ford and Mitsubishi about to be prodded here have trundled along for several years in their current form; both come in 2WD and 4WD, and naturally offer a choice of trim levels and engines. Costs are much the same. While it’s possible to source a 4WD double-cab from either maker for £17,000+, the more up-market Barbarian and Wildtrak variants featured will lighten the pocket by £26,500-£27,000.

For that you get a full measure of Bob the Builder chrome, a common-rail turbodiesel engine, the ability to seat five, a 1t payload, a modest selection of in-cab goodies and, in the case of the L200, a five-speed auto box. Specifying manual transmission on this car drops the price by £1,500. Practicality I The two brands take different approaches to their cab and load area. The Ford is some 100mm shorter overall, but by favouring load space over cab size it gives away only a little on bed length. But that bed is a substantial 90mm narrower at maximum, and the load bay’s sides and weighty tailgate are higher to lift stuff across.

The L200’s bigger bay is easier to load into and more boxy, which in day-to-day terms outweighs the Ranger’s better roping facilities; the L200 has no external hooks. And no matter what you think of the Mitsubishi’s fat-boy chrome bar, it does form a locator for ladders and similar stuff that the Ranger in Wildtrak guise can’t manage — along with rear cab glass that opens electrically to make a through-way for really long items.

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