Or at least you do from the corporate point of view. For people who buy and love their compact trucks, there’s no replacement for a small, utilitarian vehicle -- and the void in the Ford lineup left by the Ranger can’t be filled by the likes of the F-150 or the work-oriented Transit Connect. Our guess is that the buyers who have been snapping up new Ranger models will take their business elsewhere rather than pony up the extra cash for a brand-new full-size pickup.

Ford sells plenty of Rangers every year -- up to 75,000 units on average by some estimates -- even though the truck is running the same engine and transmission choices with which the latest generation debuted nearly two decades ago. To say that there’s simply no market for a compact pickup is either misguided or misinformed. Even with an absolute dearth of platform investment, the Ranger has had no problem moving itself off the lot, and neither have its fresher competitors.

The decision to ax the Ranger is even more curious given that all manufacturers are staring at even stricter government fuel-economy standards coming down the pike. To us, it doesn’t make much sense to kill off a small vehicle that could have easily returned better than 30 mpg with but a little drivetrain development, and instead favor a thirsty full-size.

Ford clearly sent the Ranger to the great car lot in the sky in a move to drive even more buyers toward the best-selling F-150. It may work here in the short term, but fuel prices are nearly guaranteed to rise eventually. When that happens, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Ford mourning the loss of its smaller pickup.