Ford Ranger demand is so high that the carmaker is scheduling enormous amounts of overtime just to keep up, according to Ford’s North American president.

The Ford Ranger has returned after 8 years of being absent from the North American market. Why did Ford kill off the Ranger only to bring it back nearly a decade later? Nobody is quite sure. It’s not like the Ranger wasn’t one of the most beloved pickups the oldest carmaker in the world has ever produced.

But even as Ford killed it in North America, the Ranger lived on overseas, tantalizingly out of reach. Only now it’s back within our borders as a young, vibrant new design with a 2.3-L EcoBoost turbo 4-banger pumping out 270 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque.

According to a recent report from Bloomberg, people are a clamoring for the Ranger. Before going on sale, Ford received 300,000 notes of interest from online shoppers. That’s way more than Ford expected to build this year in the factory that used to build Focuses (Focus? Focii? We can never be sure what the plural of Focus is), so they’re ratcheting up overtime hours to get enough Rangers out to dealerships.

RELATED: FORD TO MAKE COMPACT PICKUP SMALLER THAN RANGER

“The demand is going to be so strong, that starting in February, just in a few days, our Wayne Assembly plant where this product is made will be going into massive overtime,” said Ford’s North American President Kumar Galhotra. “That is fantastic news.”

Ranger
via Ford

Ford announced last year that they were going to be getting out of the car business entirely and focus their operations on far more profitable trucks and SUVs. The only car that Ford still makes in North America is the best-selling Mustang muscle car, with the Focus, Taurus, and everything else being killed off either this year or next.

According to the report, 90% of Ford’s capital expenditure is now tied up making trucks and SUVs. One can only imagine the absolute havoc a substantial rise in gas prices might cause if all of Ford’s customers were to rush back to gas-sipping sedans and coupes.

NEXT: FORD RANGER RAPTOR MAY ACTUALLY COME TO U.S. DOWN THE LINE