Ford Ranger Raptor review: tacky and garish in all the right ways
Ranger Raptor Ford Rugged
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Ranger Ford Raptor |
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★★★★★ |
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A Gas Twin What A Thing Drinks That V6 Turbo Petrol |
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Emphasis">the In a week when the Green Party announced it felt the time had arrived to introduce measures to reduce the numbers of SUVs sold in this country – we buy 13% more of them than any other European nation – we get to test something which will without doubt give any committed environmentalist the vapours. It comes – at least the tester did – in a lurid tangerine colour and is bedecked with some of the most awful go-faster decals seen since Evil Knievel was a boy and many of my contemporaries were redecorating their Raleigh Chopper bikes into a pre-pubescent vision of masculinity. ‘It’ is the Ford Ranger Raptor and it is, in many ways, the adult version of the venerable Chopper – a vehicle for boy/men, girl/women of all ages. Nominally a pick-up truck, the Raptor is so much more than that and while it is a ridiculously capable thing, it is also an exercise in vastness and excess and as such will appeal to those for whom projecting the illusion of virility and strength is a necessity of life. The basic Ranger, of course, is one of Ford’s most popular products and sells from the Amazon delta to the high Appalachia and on to Aghabullogue. It’s a sort of everyman pick-up that has genuine practical appeal, even if a lot of them are driven by machismos of either sex simply because they are big, imposing and rubber stamp a vision of potency. Those who use the Ranger for true day-to-day purposes – builders, farmers, plumbers and so forth – have purchased something which will get them (and their employees) to work every time and which will ferry alarming amounts of concrete mixers/small bullocks/copper pipe to wherever they need to get them. Those who don’t are, largely, poseurs of one description or another. Raptor buyers are of a different class altogether and are probably in need of some validation in their lives; or at best, desperate for some sort of need to feed from the envy of lesser mortals. In short, they are very much of the ‘look-at-me’ type of being, suffering from a sort of Peacock syndrome, if you will. Having said all that, I do have to tell you that the Raptor, gaudy, garish and loud as it is, is actually a fantastic piece of kit and a vehicle at which Ford has thrown extraordinary amounts of engineering nous in order to allow it capably tackle everything from a crevassed (and melting) glacier, to the Khyber Pass, or even an Irish country boreen. The headline upgrades on the new Raptor show it to now have a 288 bhp three-litre V6 petrol engine, as well as trick dampers derived direct from those vehicles which take part in such as the Dakar Rally or the Baja 1000 and designed by off-road racing specialists, Fox. It also has two locking differentials and no less than seven different drive modes which provide specific parameters for driving on everything from muddy roads to your everyday cliff face. And, the thing is, that this beast – and it most definitely is a beast – is equally comfortable on normal roads as it might be climbing El Capitan. Indeed, there is a suspicion here that the Raptor might just be a touch over-engineered and especially so for those will never venture further off road than a lay-by, but the manner in which it patently dismisses such irritants as potholes or humpback bridges (soft landing every time) is hugely impressive. Like most pick-ups there is a lot of feedback through the steering, but it is still well-weighted and nicely direct unlike so many others of the persuasion which are vague and often quite scary. It does lean into corners a touch, but the complex suspension systems fool it into thinking it’s a rally car and so there’s never any concerns about ride or grip. Interestingly, the Raptor only has 17” alloys which seem tiny in the scheme of this thing, but the massive BF Goodrich tyres (which actually seem to ape motorbike tyres by having tread deep into the sidewalls) fill out the wheel arches nicely. Huge and all as it is, the Raptor does present small access and egress issues: you do have to climb aboard using the running boards and handle located on the A-pillar; and, when you’re getting out, you’ll find your little legs flapping around aimlessly as they seek terra firma. The V6 is a blast and it seemed like a real throwback to oft forgotten days of the near past, what with its glorious baritone grumble, not to mention the heroic twin-turbo boosted 7.9 second 0-100 km/h time and the 180 km/h top speed. And the thing is, for a truck, the Raptor is mighty quick and has a couple of neat tricks to help it along, not least that it will fire a blast of fuel into the exhaust manifold when you take your foot off the gas to keep the turbos wound up, just so when you plant the accelerator again there’s no mick-acting around with lag or such carry on. A downside – or badge of honour, really – is that according to the Raptor’s own computer, the tester averaged 14.1 litres per 100 km on the guzzle front. For the non-decimal among you that is abut 19 mpg. Wow. The Greens will love that. In order to match the garish exterior, the interior is also suitably tacky, what with tangerine inserts around the air vents and ‘Raptor’ embossed on the steering wheel and on the back of the front seats in tangerine also. Other than that it is all-black with leather upholstery and suitably hard-wearing materials covering the dash and door cards. The seating is rather comfy and the bench seat in the rear is not as benchy as to make it unsittable-on for more than 10 km. The tech is impressive too for a truck and I was surprised it was as modern as it was and not as prehistoric as its name might suggest. The truck-bed also came with an electronic cover to keep your chainsaws safe. Quite honestly, I was shaken (but not stirred) by just how capable the Raptor was and while I would probably, in truth, never be seen dead in one (I did have a wig, fake moustache and shades at hand throughout the test), I simply couldn’t get over the mad shit you could make this thing do. And I couldn’t get over the fact it made me smile so much. Given that this is a car with each and every one of the vices that environmentalists are trying to get the motor industry to stomp out, this should be nothing other than an anachronistic car with no future. Instead, it is the recipient of a five-star rating and, to be frank, it would get ten stars if such a thing existed. | |