Ford creates a baby Ranger Raptor pickup
Can you say “Ranger DETROIT Raptor?” Now try it with an Australian accent: “No worries, mate. I’ll pick you up for the barbie in me Ford Ranger Raptor. G’day.”
That’s as close as Ford’s legions of U.S. truck fans may get to the Blue Oval’s latest road warrior for the foreseeable future. Ford has announced it will sell a high-performance Raptor off-road racer version of its Ranger midsize pickup in Australia and other countries around the Pacific Rim next year.
“Combining the Raptor’s advanced off-road capabilities with the versatility of the Ranger is a significant accomplishment for Ford’s world-class engineering and design teams,” said Jamal Hameedi, chief engineer of Ford’s global Performance group.
Easy, digger. That doesn’t mean there are plans for a U.S. Ranger Raptor. Far from it. The Ranger Raptors built in Ford’s Thai pickup plant will be very different from the midsize pickup of the same name hitting U.S. roads next year. The U.S. Ranger has been re-engineered for American buyers. We’re not likely to learn its details until auto show season.
Ford already sells a pickup of which dreams are made in the U.S. With the 450-horsepower engine, the $49,265 F-150 Raptor is a full-size truck engineered for off-road racing. The existence of a Ranger Raptor in other parts of the world is sure to conjure visions of a smaller, more affordable version in America. But Ford ducks questions about U.S. sales or production of the Ranger Raptor like an American tourist dodging a Vegemite sandwich.
The words “Ranger Raptor” will excite truck fans, and video of a camouflaged truck rocketing through the Australian Outback will stoke the fire. In addition to plumes of red dust and shots of a Ranger Raptor in full flight with all four wheels airborne, the brief video features racing harnesses and close-ups of its modified offroad suspension in action.