![]() ![]() It’s a big vehicle with a long wheelbase, and yet it climbs, descends, crawls and twists over rocks, and articulates its rear axle like some gigantic, undiscovered Antipodean mountain goat. Being the first Ranger Raptor with two locking differentials, plus a proper electronically controlled four-wheel drive system with transfer gearing, it comes with 265mm of ground clearance, a ladder frame and 70-profile knobbly BF Goodrich off-road tyres. I could do this all day”.Īnd, off road at least, you’ll be amazed what else this extra-special pick-up can do. What it says is (and feel free to insert your own Aussie drawl here) “go aaahhn - go for your life, mate. There’s no squirm or pitch, very little rebound, and no sense at all that the suspension’s even near the limit of its travel. Most importantly, though, when contact with terra firma is re-established, the Raptor’s suspension copes with the weight, the inertia and all of the rapidly dissipating energy generated with an extraordinary matter-of-factness. If your jump was high enough, and your backside drifted clear enough of the seat cushion, perhaps they would. It seems a missed opportunity, frankly, that the seatbelt warning lights don’t flash on at this point. The VDC unit, in turn, tells the Raptor’s new Fox ‘Live Valve’ adaptive dampers to promptly force extra compression pressure into the lower extremes of their travel, effectively preparing this 2.5-tonne, 5.3-metre, 288bhp flying pick-up truck for imminent landing. Once you know what it means, that click will produce a Pavlovian response in a giddy driver every single time. The click in question is produced by special position sensors mounted on the Raptor’s suspension control arms, put there with one purpose: to send a signal to the truck’s central Vehicle Dynamics Controller chassis brain just as its axles hit their 'full-Daisy-Duke-droop' position. Only a Baja-style, road-legal performance vehicle quite like this one - a modern fast Ford developed not in North America, nor in Europe, but on the dirt and sand of Australia - could ever really need systems specifically intended to cope with the realities and consequences of ‘getting air’. Ford Ranger Raptor to be trialled by UK police forces. ![]() Ford Ranger Raptor Special Edition 2022 UK first drive. ![]()
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