Fun on the rocks without eish!

FORD RANGER: EVEN FOR A BANG BROEK, OFF-ROADING CAN BECOME ADDICTIVE If you’re going to fly, the best way to do it is in business class in a Raptor.

In matters of automotive skill, as in the intimate arts, most men over-estimate their competence levels … but when it comes to driving (or racing) a motor vehicle, I am not ashamed to say I have no doubt about the league in which I should be playing. And it’s not the premier one.

If there is an experience to be had in a racing-type machine and there is a skilled driver on hand, I am quite happy to sit in the passenger seat.

Well, except on one occasion, when there wasn’t a passenger seat in the single-seat Formula GTI race car. The owner generously allowed me to punt it around Swartkops raceway in Pretoria for a few laps – and I repaid him by almost crunching the clutch and the gearbox by going from fourth to second in the Hewland ’box.

When you do sit beside a master (or mistress) of the driving arts, though, it is best to trust them. Place your life and welfare in their hands, but accept they know the limits better than you do. Trust that what feels like imminent death to you is not … then you can relax and enjoy.

So, that’s the line I take when Gideo Basson, the off-road fundi who runs the Ford Adventure Club just outside Pretoria, asks me if I want to take the wheel of the somewhat intimidating Ford Ranger Raptor. Knowing I will not come close to his ability to throw the 4x4 bakkie around on dirt, I say I am happy to watch from the passenger seat.

It’s not long before we’re barrelling towards what looks like an impossibly sharp left-hander on what can only be charitably described as a track.

I trust Gideo, but I don’t trust this Raptor, which is a Ford Ranger that you can take offroad racing right out of the box.

As the stones machine gun against the belly of the vehicle,

I look at the large rocks in our path and almost feel the coming hard and disastrous smack of granite against metal. But nothing happens. The trick, off-road sport suspension (each of the four shock absorbers costs about R20 000) soaks it all up and, with spurts of gravel from all four corners as the Raptor looks for traction, we’re off at speeds which would make your nose bleed on tar, never mind the back-of-beyond.

In the comfort of the spacious cabin, I realise, as we leap into the air over a “yump”, that if you’re going to fly, the best way to do it is in business class in a Raptor. The landing scarcely rates a wiggle from the Raptor chassis.

It’s addictive and I almost want to shout: “Do it again! Do it again!”

The Raptor forces you to recalibrate your understanding of what a 4x4 can do.

In my case, I am a great fan of the old off-road saying: “As slow as possible. As fast as necessary.” But the Raptor turns that upside down.

The Raptor is a favourite of Gideo’s. He describes it as made for the person who does a lot of bad gravel road travelling but wants to do it quickly.

Its racing cred is obvious in a specially designed transmission software programme which allows Baja mode (a tribute to the famous desert bash on the Baja Peninsula between California and Mexico), where the Raptor goes into rear-wheel-driveonly mode and allows you to “drift”. It’s the first thing I try when I get to drive the Raptor myself. As we clear the tar at the turn off to Breedt’s Nek – a challenging off-road track which used to be a pleasant country road – I stop and engage Baja Mode.

With my colleague Seelan Pillay in my passenger seat, I try my best to be

Do it again! Do it again!

Gideo-like … and even though I get a few mild tail slides going, I feel the Raptor about to fall asleep, chiding me with “that the best you got, boet?”

As the going gets rockier, I need some of the other weapons in the Raptor’s 4x4 armoury, but not the extreme rock crawl setting. A few weeks earlier, I had gone up the Nek very carefully so as not to damage the new Land Rover Defender I was driving. This time, I’m not nearly as cautious – because I don’t have to be.

Ford’s communications manager Minesh Bhagaloo is following in his own Raptor. He beams when I tell him I can’t believe how easy it all is. “I told you, bru, this is an awesome vehicle!”

That’s a verdict Seelan echoes after he takes over.

The Raptor is not for everybody. If you want something which will tow your boat, then rather get a standard Wildtrak 4x4 Ranger.

It will have the same 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel engine and 10-speed auto gearbox. And it is formidable.

The Raptor is for the enthusiast who likes the thrills on the rocks … but without “eish!”