THE BABY RAPTOR

Sat, 10 Feb 2018 13:41:50 +0000

By Kawama Mulonda

HAVE seen several Ford Rangers wearing gear and stickers to mimic the Ford Raptor. The Raptor is a big F-150 based truck in the United States.

It is a performance truck packing a powerful engine and especially adapted suspension. Well, as fate would have it there is a Ranger Raptor coming. On Tuesday, Ford launched the Ranger Raptor in Bangkok.

It is based on the new 2019 Ranger but with extra sauce. It is buffier and aptly called the baby raptor. Even if it is nearly as wide as the original raptor, it is smaller in all other dimensions.

Pictures of this new truck have been leaked and teased with several speculating that the power will still be from the 3.5 V6 Eco boost gas engine from the F150 raptor, however, a new 2.0 litre four cylinder bi-turbo diesel will run it. It will be good for 155 KW and 500 NM of torque which is more than the 147KW/470NM that is currently in the 3.2 litre Ranger. It comes with a 10-speed automatic transmission with paddle shift (behind the leather steering wheel).

It features electronic terrain management system with six drive modes that include Normal, Sport, Grass/Gravel/Snow, Mud/Sand, Rock and Baja. Baja is an off-road mode inspired by the Baja race which is a challenging race held in the United States on different terrains including desert.

Off-roading ability is heightened by including Fox Racing Shocks, dent-resistant composite fenders, an integrated tow bar with tow hooks, BF Goodrich All-Terrain tires and alloys.

A pair of tow hooks appear both at the front and at the back: for pulling out others stuck or for being pulled out when stuck.

Also advantageous is a Ground clearance of 283 mm and departure angle of 24 degrees. all these come standard and not optional extras to be ticked when buying.

Other technologies featured are Electronic Stability Control (ESC), Trailer Sway Control (TSC), Hill Start Assist (HSA), Hill Descent Control (HDC), Load Adaptive Control (LAC), Lane Departure Warning (LDW) with Lane Keep Assist (LKA) and Roll Over Mitigation (ROM).

The baby Raptor fills a void of performance pickups in our market. It is set to tackle any obstacle without compromising on performance.

So one might call it a sports 4 x 4. It is also set to reintroduce the Ranger brand to the American market. At launch, it was in Right Hand Drive guise, which is good news!! This one is definitely coming to our streets, if not imported by the official Ford distributer but by keen enthusiasts.

Questions and disappointments have been raised over the small capacity engine powering a big thing like that but the outputs suggest it capable.

The questions are especially raised after the VW Amarok which ran a similar small displacement unit added a much bigger capacity engine to its range. But having being thoroughly tested in Australia (a country big on 4 x4ing), one can only gather that it is capable.

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