2021 Ford F-150 Raptor 1st Drive: The Primary Baja-Completely ready Pickup

Continuity is just not the exact as stasis, nonetheless. The most recent Raptor will get an all-new 5-link rear suspension, next-era Fox shocks, and optional 37-inch manufacturing unit tires. Other significant changes include things like an equal-length active exhaust procedure showcasing a new “trombone loop” layout that guarantees angrier motor appears, a revised front suspension, and updated body rails capable of straddling a 37-inch spare tire.

What is actually For Desert?

A severe desert setting is, in a natural way, wherever we undertook the small business of evaluating the new Raptor. Ford staged our push from downtown Las Vegas to the easygoing city of Pahrump, Nevada, in which we have been set unfastened on the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert. What, you believed we’d travel the F-150 Raptor to Trader Joe’s?

Continue to powered by a 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 developing 450 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque, the huge Ford very easily loafs along on the freeway on our way to the dunes. Through our push, we settled easily into the La-Z-Boy-model seats provided in the accessible Raptor 37 Overall performance package deal. This $7,500 choice provides those roomy Recaro bucket seats, exterior graphics, 37-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain tires, and retuned shock absorbers.

The foundation F-150 Raptor ships wearing 35-inch tires and commences at $65,840, very well below the Ram 1500 TRX’s opening request. Even though tastily equipped out of the gate, opting for the optional Raptor 37 Efficiency package deal, which calls for the Group 801A Significant offer at $6,150, plainly provides the truck up to its entire possible. Dropping all that money also brings a 360-diploma digicam, an 18-speaker B&O seem method, Rigid foglights, and professional trailer backup support. Our check case in point also experienced the ability tailgate and 2.-kilowatt ProPower onboard electrical power generator.

Our cruise toward the dunes permitted plenty of time for surveying the new Raptor’s inside. Mainly because practically every ingredient within the properly-appointed cabin is supersized, which include the manage knobs, automatic shift lever, paddle shifters, and centre console, familiarizing you with the options is an easy job. Ford sites switches for the energetic exhaust, suspension settings, and steering modes at your fingertips, giving a convenient way to alter driving design and style options though on the move.

We analyzed the cruise regulate and lane preserving units on our way into the desert, also, and they did a fantastic occupation slowing, accelerating, and holding the truck centered in its lane. When cruise regulate detected our peaceful steering wheel grasp, it flashed a warning on the instrument cluster urging us to keep our hands on the wheel.

Ride Softly But Carry Significant Air

Around evenly paved roadways, the necessarily mean-hunting Raptor rides softly on its gigantic 37-inch tires. Even so, that’s not to say all delicate bounces and vibrations have totally long gone absent due to the fact, nicely, individuals are difficult attributes crack a major truck of, no subject how extravagant the shocks.

Sprints from a cease will primarily make you forget about about the Ford’s sizing, if only for a moment. Launches are enthusiastic and even much better with the Raptor established to its Activity travel mode, though nowhere around on par with the new 702-hp Ram 1500 TRX, which is the quickest truck we have at any time analyzed.

Most remarkable of all is how, as with the aged Raptor, an off-road truck of this dimension can zip through a curve at higher speeds. The significant tires and large-track suspension hold the Ford emotion planted even when being hustled, on pavement or normally.

When in Pahrump, we headed straight to Dumont Dunes for some grueling tests underneath the scorching sunshine. The day kicked off with an overlanding knowledge in the Raptor’s Baja method we barreled down straight grime paths and zig-zagged throughout the sand.

At a hill climb impediment, just like you’ve got almost certainly viewed at King of the Hammers or a different severe off-road occasion, the mission turned to scaling the pile at complete velocity and creeping to the bottom of the other (rocky) side. Gauging the proper instant to gun it even though protecting momentum was the vital to a profitable climb in the sand. The Raptor scaled the steep hill without having a struggle, more feral animal than truck.

Whilst barreling all-around the dunes, we recognized the 10-pace automated transmission’s shifts are rapid, and the (artificially) amplified motor noises discharging from the active exhaust produce ideal aural urgency to the proceedings, even if the twin-turbo V-6 cannot match the TRX’s reserve of electric power.

The brake technique is dutifully responsive, although coming to a halt in the dunes only requires a average tapping of the brake pedal. In deeper sand, easing off the accelerator is practically as successful at bringing the large boy pickup truck to a end in a stable and predictable fashion. Oh, and body control? The Raptor has that less than regulate.

Previously we mentioned how acquiring the Raptor 37 package deal is virtually necessary partly which is for all those beefy tires, but the imposing and extremely-broad Recaro buckets are each individual bit as worth it. Upholstered in Rhapsody Blue leather with Alcantara suede inserts and Code Orange stitching, t
he chairs held us agency through nonstop off-street bashing. These seats embrace as perfectly as they cosset, filtering out some of the lumps and bumps the suspension and those significant Fox shocks can not.

As a result of a whoops area, a dune handling study course, and a washout route, the Raptor confirmed its ten years of substantial-speed off-street breeding. The Ford trounced the whoops part vigorously still with stable handle, never dropping traction and keen to select up pace wherever it could. Racing all-around the dunes felt like surfing on the sand with a monster truck. You speedily discover that gentle tugs of the wheel and lots of throttle will get the Raptor likely exactly where you position it. Oh, and we under no circumstances obtained trapped in the sand.

Armed with client responses, Ford advanced the third-era F-150 Raptor without having tossing in just about anything revolutionary. No matter if this is enough to make up for the Raptor’s 252-hp drawback relative to the supercharged V-8-run Ram TRX, its very first immediate competitor, will want to wait around for a good comparison take a look at. Going by specs by itself, the Ford in its recent sort definitely is not going to maintain up with the Ram in a straight line, but it remains the grizzled veteran in a market it practically designed 10 many years ago. And really should the supposedly more strong Raptor R strike the scene upcoming year, the rating-settling can certainly start off.

2021 Ford F-150 Raptor
Foundation Selling price $65,840
Layout Entrance-motor, 4WD, 5-move, 4-doorway truck
Engine 3.5L/450-hp/510-lb-ft twin-turbo DOHC 24-valve V-6
TRANSMISSION 10-speed automobile
Control Bodyweight 5,750 lb (est)
WHEELBASE 145.4 in
L x W x H 232.6 x 86.6 x 80.7 in
-60 MPH 5.5 sec (MT est)
EPA Gas ECON 15/16/15 mpg
ON SALE Now