The BEST Ford Ranger Raptor Feature No One Is Talking About!

So pickups aren't funny .

They're just a tool for carrying around large amounts of stuff .

Well , there's a new boy in town .

Yes , the Raptor .

That's a very famous name in the truck industry because until today it sat proudly only on the most hardcore street legal off road version of the F 1 50 the Ford Raptor .

But now that name also popped up on the back of another Ford pickup truck called the Ranger .

This is not your run of the mill Ranger .

This is called the Raptor and it's supposed to be the ultimate Ford Ranger off road pickup or truck , whatever you want to call them .

And after driving it for the last couple of days , I think it fits that definition perfectly .

The Swedish countryside doesn't seem to upset the raptor in any way , no matter what kind of terrain it offers .

When driving off road , you can feel how easy it is for the raptor to handle this kind of terrain .

Yes , folks , Ford didn't just take a standard ranger .

Slap some badges on it , added off road tires and called it a raptor .

Oh , no , they've given it the full raptor makeover .

Well , almost full on , but bear with me .

I'll explain as we go along .

But anyway , before we move forward , let's run through the specs a little bit up front .

We have a two liter twin turbo diesel engine capable of producing 213 horsepower and 500 Newton meters of torque in the middle .

Here , we have the same 10 speed automatic transmission that you can find in the Mustang and drive goes to all four wheels .

Although you have a selector down here that allows you to set up the traction .

However way you like it , you have two wheel drive mode where the power goes to the back wheels , you have four wheel drive , high range mode and four wheel drive , low range mode for when you're really stuck .

And finally , the Ranger Raptor has six driving modes , normal sport , gravel and snow mode , mud and sand mode , baja mode , which is supposed to be really useful when driving on sand .

And finally , we have rocks .

The suspension is built by Fox Racing .

A company that specializes in off road racing suspension systems .

The front part uses aluminum control arms both on the top and the bottom for better control over the movement of the wheels and the shocks are mounted inside the coil springs in a macpherson strut configuration at the back , we have a solid rear axle that sprung with cold springs .

The Ranger Raptor also has an innovative watts link which is essentially a linkage mounted to the rear of the differential housing that allows the rear axle to freely move vertically .

But at the same time , not allowing any horizontal movement because of this fence in the suspension , the raptor can only tow 20 500 kg and it has a payload of 758 kg compared to the regular ranger .

These numbers are quite low but because of the extended suspension travel that the Raptor has Ford had to limit both towing load and payload .

In order to cater for maximum suspension travel without hitting the bomb stops .

They could have avoided this by fitting a firm suspension , but that would have a negative effect on how this car handles in off road situations .

But yeah , you can look at the ranger Raptor as being the cool truck sort of a lifestyle vehicle if you wish while the regular ranger is the actual war course of the line up .

And because all of this fancy and clever engineering , the Ranger Raptor can cope with every single type of terrain out there .

And like I said , in the beginning , it's really difficult to find challenging bits of terrain around Stockholm for this car .

It's amazingly capable if you would take an X five over this patch of road , you see here , it wouldn't manage to go further than mirrors .

But in the Raptor , it was a piece of cake and it doesn't even look at that bit dramatic for the camera while doing it .

So right about now , you're probably wondering what's that very surprising feature of the new Ranger Raptor that nobody seems to mention for me , the most surprising aspect of driving the new Ranger Raptor is how it handles on asphalt .

I was obviously expecting this car to do very well off road , but it's actually really good on road as well .

It has almost s class levels of comfort and refinement .

I know that's hard to believe , especially considering what tires this car is riding on .

But believe me , it's quite true .

There's very little tire noise coming into the cabin and the suspension makes this car feel like you're riding a 20 ft boat .

It's extremely comfortable this car and obviously potholes and speed bumps are non existent for this car because you don't actually feel anything when driving over them no matter what speeds you're doing .

I seriously don't see a big issue doing a few 100 kilometers of highway in this thing .

The ride is superb .

Don't expect good handling on be roads though .

It's too wide for these roads anyway .

And you really need to pay attention not to place a wheel on the other lane , but the road is significant .

The steering is pretty slow and the engine won't help you either .

To be honest , the engine is probably the biggest let down of this entire package .

I know 230 horsepower and 500 Newton meters of torque might sound like a lot on paper .

But considering this car weighs 2.5 tons , those numbers start to feel pretty low .

It takes about 10 seconds for this car to reach 100 kilometers per hour from standstill .

And even though this has a diesel engine up front , it's not what you would call economical in the last 700 kilometers or so .

I couldn't get this car to eat up less than 10 liters per 100 kilometers .

The gearbox is pretty good .

I liked it in the Mustang as well .

I think it fits even better in the raptor .

Changes are smooth and you also have these quite cool paddles behind the steering wheel .

If you , for some reason want to override the system and change gears for yourself , the interior is pretty well put together and if you've driven a Ford recently , there's a lot of familiar stuff in here .

There's a touch screen infotainment system , this quite cool leather and clothed seats , a chunky steering wheel with a w raptor badge , some leather on the dash and overall there's quite good materials for the price .

The cabin is pretty spacious , including the back seats and well for a truck , there's quite a lot of equipment you get cruise control as standard adjustable seats and a keyless entry system .

I personally like the design of the interior .

I think it matches pretty well with the whole concept of the car and I especially like the way you jump inside the car by grabbing the handle next to the door and stepping on the ladder .

Quite cool .

Now , obviously , it's not as posh on the inside here like it is in the next five , but it's not that expensive either .

But anyway , I really enjoyed my week with this car .

This is an awesome package , but I personally think that this truck is screaming for a V eight engine to match everything else it has to offer .

But unfortunately Ford did what they could considering how strict the exhaust regulations are .

Nowadays in Europe , the people from the US will probably be more lucky than us because when the Ranger Raptor arrives in America , it's supposed to have some kind of a V six petrol unit fitted to it .

So that's definitely an improvement .

But anyway , this has been it for today's video .

My friends , I really hope you've enjoyed it .

Please give it a thumbs up if you have and make sure to subscribe for plenty more videos to come and until next time , take good care of yourselves and I'll see you around .