There’s a new sheriff in town
RANGER RAPTOR: FASTEST BAKKIE THING SETTLED This 2.4-ton double cab hits 150km/h in 400m and just 15.15sec.
This fastest bakkie thing between VW, Toyota and Ford has been raging since man invented the wheel. For years, numbers have been flying, accompanied by heated debate as to who rules the roost.
The Blue Oval has decided to settle this matter once and for all, and they have brought a nuke to a gun fight in their new Ford Ranger Raptor.
Bring a 190kW Amarok V6, bring a Toyota Hilux GR-Sport, bring what you want from the showroom floor, the Ford Ranger Raptor simply destroys them all. South Africa officially has a new fatest production bakkie.
A 2.4-ton double cab bakkie kitted out for tackling seriously rough dirt roads like a champ, running on all terrain tyres and then sprinting to 100km/h in a hot-hatch territory time of 6.9 seconds is unheard of.
There is no need to mess around trying to bend the prop shaft around the gearbox because you are sitting on the brake pedal, building too much wheelspin inducing boost before blasting off the line.
The Ford Ranger Raptor does not have a launch control function, so you just turn the dial and select Baja mode, boot the loud pedal and it hauls through the quarter mile (about 400m) in 15.15sec at over 150km/h and onto its electronic speed limiter of 180km/h before it gets to the 800m mark.
This nuke-like punch is courtesy of some performance-inspired insanity that allowed a 292kW/583Nm twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre EcoBoost V6 petrol engine to be massaged into the front of this new Raptor.
The previous-generation Raptor had the show, but with only 157kW and 500Nm on tap from its 2.0-litre biturbo diesel mill, there was no real go to speak of. Consider this point comprehensively addressed.
The now-familiar 10-speed automatic transmission features boost programming per gear along with seven selectable drive modes, plus new features like Trail Crawl, as well as a user-defined “R” MyMode and an electronically controlled active exhaust system that offers Quiet, Normal, Sport and Baja.
In addition, you can select from four steering modes, Normal, Sport, Comfort and OffRoad to bring home just some of the versatility offered by this double cab bakkie that is unbeatable on tar and on dirt.
Is there a downside to this performance? Yes.
These ponies like to be fed and if you think you are getting anywhere near the claimed fuel consumption of 11.5-litres per 100km, you are not. I saw numbers in the low 14s when driving like a civilised human being and over 20l/100km when I wanted to play.
But my logic is that you know what you want and what you are getting yourself into when you put down your R1 094 900 for this Ford Ranger Raptor and the fun you will have makes it well worthwhile.