Ford Ranger Raptor - long-term review

Well, it finally happened. I used the mighty Raptor as a truck to do truck things. And it was such a success that I’m planning other things to make the most of its utility. Both the Raptor and I are walking a little taller, feeling more rugged. We are creatures of action and purpose. Well, sometimes. Very rarely.

The glorious day started unremarkably enough. Grey, cold, light drizzle. Luckily the Raptor is a very welcome sight on a winter’s day. Climbing up into the driver’s seat (and it is quite a climb. You sit much higher than most SUVs and really need the running board) creates a sense of elevated invincibility. Plus, the heated seats are nuclear and the heated steering wheel works very well, too.

The first leg of the journey was a simple 80-mile motorway schlep in company with my old Porsche 996 Carrera. Not much to report other than how HUGE the Raptor looks next to a 27-year old 911. In fact, it is huge. Over 100mm longer than a Range-Rover in long wheelbase configuration, for example. The Raptor doesn’t quite have Autobiography-levels of refinement but there’s little of the separate chassis shudder than you might expect. In this respect it’s much better than the full size F-150 Raptor available in the US.

Our destination was Litchfield, renowned tuner for Nissan GT-R and now Porsche, McLaren, BMW and anything else with four-wheels. They are the mad geniuses behind my 991 Carrera S-powered and wholly OTT 996. Which means they’ve also had my old broken 3.4-litre engine cluttering up their storage area for some time. So, the Raptor’s job was to bring it home to put in another storage area for an open-ended amount of time with the pretence I might rebuild it and sell it on. I’m sure I’ll throw it away in a few years' time!

The Raptor accepted the palette and forlorn flat-six with room to spare and despite the clearly much lower ride height once loaded, the powertrain barely seemed to notice. In some ways the truck felt a little better. The ride quality more settled, creating an even more relaxing journey on the way home. The afterglow of using a hand-pumped forklift and doing manual labour things probably helped, too.

As it turned out I had to drive around with the engine in the bed for several days. This curtailed my usual driving style, but did reinforce the Raptor’s effortless abilities. Five-up and with a heavy old lump in the back, the Ford barely shrugged. Although I am naturally prejudiced against huge, heavy vehicles purporting to be family cars, I have to admit that having the Raptor around is very appealing indeed. As much for the theoretical ability as for actually deploying it. Off-road, towing, loaded-up with stuff, sliding heroically around on tarmac, sand, mud or rocks… as a car for the apocalypse, the Raptor is hard to beat. Not bad on a drizzly Monday morning in Northamptonshire, either.