New Ford Ranger Raptor coming soon

The 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor has been digitally imagined again – this time by Brazilian graphic design house KDesign AG – and the results look rather promising.

Not expected to launch until late 2022 or early 2023, the new-generation Ford Ranger Raptor has been officially teased by Ford, but the Blue Oval brand has so far refused to shed any solid light (literally) on its new hero ute, leaving plenty to the imagination.

As such, renders like these and other possible Ford Ranger derivatives including hybrid and Lightning electric variants are cropping up all over the internet.

From the teaser image shown during the regular Ranger’s global debut, we know the next Raptor is going to retain its signature capital-letter ‘FORD’ grille badging and that is exactly what takes precedence in the KDesign render.

Compared to other speculative images we’ve seen, other Raptor upgrades you can see here are more subtle and amount to an all-round more purposeful look thanks to black honeycomb grille mesh, a beefier front bumper (including the imitation skid plate), prominent recovery points and redesigned alloy wheels.

In case the average punter misses the pumped-up cues, bold Raptor decals span both sets of doors.

At the rear, the tail-lights are linked by a large black tailgate insert proudly displaying similar ‘FORD’ badging to the front, with the ‘D’ being underlined by the familiar ‘Raptor’ badge.

While it’s not obvious in this rendering, you can also expect the new Ranger Raptor to again offer a good deal more ground clearance and wheel travel than regular versions, while on- and off-road traction will be enhanced by wider wheel tracks and chunkier all-terrain tyres, likely to again be BF Goodrich KO2s.

Presumably, the new Raptor will once again also bring a unique Watts Link rear-end housing a full-size spare wheel, Fox dampers and pumped-up quarter guards, plus all of the upgrades from the new Ranger dual-cab, including four-wheel disc brakes and a huge 15-inch portrait-style touch-screen with SYNC4 infotainment interface.

All of these cosmetic and technical upgrades will complement a huge powertrain upgrade too, with latest intel suggesting the next Raptor will switch its current 157kW/500Nm 2.0-litre turbo-diesel not for the new Ranger’s optional 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel but a V6 turbo-petrol engine of the same capacity, outputting up to 300kWand 563Nm.

That’s before the possibility of hybrid tech is thrown into the mix, all of which makes the new Raptor likely to break the $80,000 when it’s released in about 12 months.

However, we won’t need to wait that long to find out what exactly the new Raptor looks like or what it’s packing under the bonnet – the official reveal is slated for February next year and we expect it to arrive about six months after the release of the mainstream Ranger line-up around mid-2022.