This week we drove the new Ford Raptor, and frankly had fun with it. I thought about washing the truck for you, but why? With the Raptor, you’re only going to get it dirty again.
Yes, the Ford F150 Raptor is pretty much a full-bore, jacked-up, gigantic Tonka toy that will take you and some willing buddies wearing kidney belts, pretty much anywhere you want to go. Need to escape from terrorists? Need to deliver precious medicine across the Sahara? This is your truck, and it will do it without breathing hard.
The formula is simple. Start with a regular Ford F150 SuperCrew, cut it in half and weld in 8 full inches of extra width, jack up the whole shebang so it clears a set of 35-inch Goodrich tires, and then seemingly coat the whole thing in solid pig-iron, it feels that tough.
The truck is subtle, don’t you think? Step up, and you will step up, and you will see a regular F150 cab, which is a very nice place to be, equipped with a row of switches just waiting to be hooked up to whatever off-road accessories you wish to add.
On the road, the truck is just fine, once you get used to pretty much filling up your lane from stripe to stripe. I once nursed the 411-horsepower, 6.2-liter Ford V8 up to a whopping 13 miles per gallon, but come on, that’s not what this is all about. It’s about off-road, and though we didn’t do enough to make it even breathe hard, the articulation of the big twin-shock suspension system will handle any obstacles you can throw it’s way, and then laugh on the way home…probably with a couple of refueling stops.
Starting at $46,000, the Ford Raptor, from the Special Vehicle Team or SVT, is a huge, gaudy, tough cartoon of a truck. And it is the most fun you can have while fully dressed.
And that’s the Ford Raptor. Yeah, it isn’t very subtle, but if you want subtle, think Kia. If you want a meat cleaver of a truck, here you go.