New Ford Ranger Raptor: Five things we love – and don’t

The new Ford Ranger Raptor has been revealed and what a vehicle it promises to be.

We’ve all now seen the imposing look and read the crazy-fast spec sheet. Now we’re impatiently waiting to drive it.

But we’ve also had some significant gut reactions to the new Raptor, which is based on the new Ranger due on sale by mid-2022 and will be available later this year, so it’s only right we share them with you.

How could you not love an Aussie-developed performance vehicle that slams down almost 300kW – or 400 horsepower in the old language?

That it will be available in a dual-cab 4x4 ute – Australia’s most popular new-vehicle type – makes it even more compelling.

And as we heard in Ford’s earlier teaser video, the 292kW/583Nm 3.0-litre twin-turbo EcoBoost petrol V6 will sound absolutely cracking.

Ford Australia engineers are saying the new Ranger Raptor is hot hatch fast in a straight-line, with a 0-100km/h time of around six seconds – on gravel – making it almost twice as quick as its four-cylinder turbo-diesel predecessor.

But the 2022 Ford Ranger Raptor is no one-trick pony. A beefed-up T6 ladder-frame chassis, new adaptive Fox Shox and on-demand permanent 4x4 have those engineers equally enthusiastic about what it achieves when the going gets twisty – on dirt or bitumen.

Importantly, the Raptor allegedly retains its ability to handle the rough slow-speed stuff as well.

When Ford Australia was announced as the home of the T6 development program all the way back in 2006 the news was overshadowed by guarantees for the future production of Falcon and Territory.

Well, Falcon, Territory and the plant where they were built are long gone, but the T6 program – and the Ranger, Everest and Bronco models it has spawned – stands tall.

The new Ranger Raptor is yet another expression of how well that program has performed and how important it has been in retaining a significant fragment of Australia’s once-mighty auto industry.

Further evidence of that comes from the fact the Ranger Raptor will be sold for the first time in the US, where it has superseded the needed for a pick-up version of the closely related Ford Bronco Raptor. 

Let’s not beat around the bush, the 2022 Ford Raptor Ranger is a different kind of beast to its predecessor. It will be brutally fast, but more expensive and much thirstier.

It’s now an apex predator that will be affordable and accessible to fewer people. So expect to see more of them jockeying for space at the boat ramp to unload jet skis than parked out in the lee of a Simpson Desert sand dune as the sun sets.

The answer to that for many people would be the 2.0-litre turbo-diesel that powered the original Raptor and will be standard across the new Ranger line-up.

It’s actually continuing on in the new-generation Raptor in some overseas markets, but Australia isn’t getting the four-cylinder model because of the overwhelming demand from local Raptor buyers for something with more grunt.

However, something like it could be renamed FX4 Max, Tremor, Wolftrak or something else and sold here too.

Or Ford Oz could give us a similar ‘Raptor-lite’ tough-truc fitted with the new circa-600Nm 3.0-litre turbo-diesel V6 that will be available in premium versions of the new Ranger.

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