Starting in 1972, Ford began selling Mazda Proceed pickups with Courier badges in the United States. At the same time, Mazda was selling the same trucks here as the B-Series. Then the Ranger replaced the Courier in 1983, while the B-Series remained available in North America through 1993. For 1994, the Mazda/Ford pickup world got flipped on its head, with a Mazda-ized Ranger taking over the B-Series name here. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of the early Ford-built Mazda pickups, found in a North Carolina car graveyard recently.
But still, some in Hiroshima must have been saddened by the replacement of the proud B-Series with Ford products.
The first appearance of the Cologne V6 in new cars sold in the United States was in the 1969 Capri, which was sold through Mercury dealers here but never given Mercury badging. The SOHC version of the Cologne 4.0 was bolted into various new U.S.-market Fords all the way through the early 2010s.
Its MSRP was $16,035, or about $33,322 in 2024 dollars.
The final model year for the Ranger-based Mazda B-Series pickups in the United States was 2009.
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