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The What Van? Road Test: Ford Ranger Raptor
Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Powertrain
Delivering 292hp at 5500rpm and 491Nm of torque at 2300rpm, the six-cylinder twin-turbo engine is married to a ten-speed automatic gearbox. So is the 2.0-litre diesel, which delivers 500Nm of torque despite its smaller capacity.
To engage four-wheel-drive you twist a dial between the front seats with four different settings.
Stick with 2H and you’ll stay in two-wheel-drive while 4L puts you into 4x4 mode ready for some muddy off-road work. 4H does the same, but gives you access to a set of low-ratio gears.
4A is there if you need to engage four-wheel-drive to negotiate a slippery conventional road surface.
Driving
We can only applaud the Raptor’s on-highway handling. Push it hard into a bend and it just hangs on in there, showing no desire to hurtle through a hedge unless you do something really foolish.
Its ride is remarkably smooth too. It seems to shrug off potholes and other highway defects, insulating the driver from the worst of the shaking and juddering they induce.
Performance? Hit the accelerator pedal and you fly thanks to huge dollops of power delivered seamlessly by the ten-speed auto box, yet at the same time the V6 is very biddable.
Drop down to a miserable 20mph on a Welsh suburban road and keep a light touch on the loud pedal and Raptor burbles along quite happily. You never feel that it’s straining to go a good deal faster, even though you may be.
We stayed in Normal mode most of the time with the occasional foray into Sport. That gives you faster accelerator response, slightly better handling thanks to a stiffer suspension system, and a louder exhaust note. Incidentally, we can’t help but love the twin rear exhausts.
Everything the engine does, it does quietly. It never sounds harsh, and seems to be completely unstressed.
If you want to switch from automatic to manual mode then all you need to do is press a button on the side of the transmission lever then use paddles on either side of the steering column to go up and down the box. If you’re not familiar with this approach to changing gear then it can feel a little bit awkward initially, but you soon get used to it.
Off-road the Raptor is king – no question about it. Herefordshire is better-known for mud – usually very wet, gloopy mud – than it is for sand, so we opted for the Mud/Ruts setting.
Our truck squelched through the stickiest patches we could find without missing a beat.
Baja mode is probably better-suited to the dry, trackless wastes of Arizona than it is to the fields of rural England. Under those conditions it would give you insane levels of on-road performance plus a very loud exhaust note – the Raptor’s exhaust note can be altered from quiet to, er, rather noticeable.
Baja triggers an anti-lag system. If you lift off the accelerator then it keeps pressure in the turbos so you get an instant response when you hit the loud pedal again.
There are grab-handles on the A- and B-pillars so most of the passengers have something to hang onto if the off-roading gets rough. A hefty metal bash plate and steel bumpers help protect the truck from damage.
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