Ford Ranger Raptor joins Supercars

The Ford Ranger Raptor will begin life as the official Supercars recovery vehicle today at the Sandown 500 in Victoria.

A new toe-in-the-water marketing exercise for Ford, which will introduce the new Mustang into the Supercars category as a factory-backed racer next year, the Raptor joins the category resplendent in high-vis graphics courtesy of a special livery designed by local stakeholders.

The actual role of the Raptor – will it really be pulling cars out of sand traps? – is yet to be determined. However, Ford believes it will be well up to the task thanks to its Baja-style chassis tune, heavy-duty bash plates and Fox suspension set-up, along with grippy 33-inch BF Goodrich all-terrain tyres.

The Supercars special goes without a winch and continues with an unchanged 2.0-litre four-cylinder biturbo-diesel that’s good for 157kW and 500Nm.

Supercars head of recovery, Alastair Walker, said the Ranger Raptor was a solid fit.

“Each track is different, even if they appear similar, so the demands on the vehicle can change from event to event, day to day or hour by hour,” he said.

“Tracks such as Winton and The Bend have a lot of runoff, which, when dry, is not too much of an issue, but when wet, can cause issues in being able to access stranded vehicles.

“Barbagallo has a lot of deep, soft sand in its runoff areas. Sandown, too, has areas such as turn three that, when wet, can have up to 12cm of water at the bottom of the hill. Bathurst, as we know, can be sunshine at the bottom of the mountain and teeming at the top.”

The Supercars exercise coincides with the Raptor’s Australian arrival this month. Initial pre-delivery sales indicated Ford was "approaching 1000 orders" for the $75,000 flagship.

Ford has said it will potentially look at entering the Raptor into some form of racing category, but is keeping its cards close to its chest.