Ford F˜150 Raptor
For the survivalist in a hurry, here’s the bigger, beefier version of America’s favourite pick-up. By CJ Hubbard
Over-the-top pick-up
THIS IS, FRANKLY, ridiculous. It’s a Ford F-150 Raptor, in the UK. Nobody needs one of these over here – towering over typical British traffic, it’s out of context like the mis-booking of Napalm Death at a Rotary Club dinner and dance. So completely out of whack, in fact, that at times other road users just don’t know how to deal with it. One poor Corsa driver nearly ditched their car in response to the Raptor’s sudden appearance. A tractor actually blinked and gave way.
I digress. Perhaps we should start with some Raptor 101. This is the Ford Performance version of the latest F-150 pick-up truck – the F-150 being the best-selling vehicle in the USA, a title it’s held since 1981. Supposedly Ford sells one every 17 seconds, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the Raptor variant isn’t something out of the ordinary; the difference between this model and the ordinary F-150 isn’t so much like going from a Fiesta to a Fiesta ST as the gap between a showroom Fiesta and the WRC car. It’s as close to a road-legal Baja racing truck as you can get.
Not only is the Raptor’s ‘military-grade aluminium’ body six inches wider than the standard pick-up’s and fitted out with off-road bumpers and skid plates, the steel box-frame chassis that lies beneath is bespoke to the Raptor, too, as are the 3409mm wheelbase and SuperCab body configuration. It weighs 227kg less than the previous Raptor, but at 2506kg it would need two Fiestas (with their boots full of shopping) to balance the scales.
Fox Racing shock absorbers and other dedicated components deliver 13 inches of front suspension travel and 13.9 inches at the rear – that’s 5.7 and 4.4 inches more than even off-road-spec ordinary F-150s. The shocks themselves now pack three-inch bodies for 44 per cent more volume than the ones fitted to the last Raptor, and nine-stage bypass damping to better deal with rough terrain. Integrated hydraulic bumpstops reduce bottoming out and help get rid of heat better, so you can now jump off really stupid things with virtual impunity. (Don’t hold us to that.) While modern life means there’s no longer an oversized bent eight under the bonnet, you get a 3.5-litre EcoBoost twin-turbo V6 instead. This is a relative of the motor that powers the Ford GT, making the Raptor a pick-up with a race-bred supercar engine. The tune is a little different – 450bhp, 510lb ft – and it still sounds more industrial than sexual, but hey: 0-60mph takes about 5.3 seconds. Switchable four-wheel drive and six driving modes – including the mildly terrifying Baja setting for high-speed off-road driving – plus a 10-speed automatic transmission complete the basic package.
Obviously there’s some interior tinsel, but driving this thing you’ll initially be more overwhelmed by size. Not only does it feel as wide as a terraced house, everything inside is enormous – the steering wheel is like a dustbin lid rimmed by a salami, the dashboard is like a cliff face, and 10 speeds seem like altogether too many for a sensible transmission. You go for a manual downshift, then realise you need to click the paddle six more times to get any meaningful difference in instance acceleration. Left to its own devices, the auto is almost alarmingly brutal, properly thumping up and down its selection of ratios as if banging a drum for them.
The multiple driving modes are all accessible on the fly using buttons that fall just under your thumb on the steering wheel. So if you suddenly decide you want to exit stage left into a field and carry on your journey via agriculture, you can easily reconfigure the Raptor appropriately.
For all that undoubted off-road ability, on humble British tarmac it can be a bit of handful. The sensation of speed is a little warped, for starters. Your reckoning blunted nd by height and weight, you’ll glance at the speedo and discover you’re going 90mph. ‘Ah,’ you’ll think. And then: ‘Is that a corner?’
To be fair, the Raptor handles rather successfully for a 2.5-tonne maisonette on longtravel suspension. But you do need to consider the all-terrain bias of the BF Goodrich tyres, and you’d be well advised to get most of your braking done before turning. If the stability control comes in somewhat abruptly that’s probably no bad thing, because snap oversteer isn’t out of the question, regardless of whether you’re trying or not. That said, if there’s a vehicle able to cope with suddenly heading into the scenery it’s this one. Hilarious. In the right circumstances.
Ford sells this monster in the US at $50k a pop (around £36,000), which makes this the kind of indulgent weekend toy plenty of hardworking folk can enjoy. But if you want one over here you’ll need to go to a specialist importer such as Clive Sutton (clivesutton. co.uk) and pay upwards of £78,000, suggesting lunatics only need apply. Which seems appropriate.