Ford's Euro-Market Ranger Raptor Is Weapons-Grade Silliness
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Unless you move large chunks of earth, or more than one toilet at a time, there’s little reason to own a pickup truck here in Europe. As such, there aren’t many kicking around. If we want to transport big stuff we can either sling it in the back of a wagon, rent a van, or hire a man with a van to (literally) do the heavy lifting for us. There are still some trucks around, though, and Ford has saved one of the most exciting ones out there just for us.
The European Ranger, Ford's smallest pickup truck, is a decent thing. It comes with a range of efficient diesel motors, its interior is very car-like so occupants won’t feel like they’re riding around in a work-focused box, and it comes with luxury features like digital radio and GPS to give occupants li'l touches of luxury. Being a workman-like vehicle, though, the Ranger gets some very macho trim levels like XL and Wildtrack so its target audience won’t feel like they have tiny appendages. There’s one that stands out though: the Ranger Raptor. Because it’s not a trim level. It’s a hungry-angry-shout-monster.
If you’re familiar with the F-150 Raptor (and no doubt you are), you’ll know the highlights—Fox shocks, extra beef to ensure it can cope with even the most rutted fields, an angry face, better brakes, a big ‘ol bash plate to stop the undercarriage from getting torn to shreds by rocks and such, and an extra jazzy motor. The Ranger Raptor has all these features, too, minus the super-potent engine. Under its ultra-macho hood is a 2.0-liter twin turbo diesel four-cylinder that sends 210 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque through a ten-speed automatic gearbox and a four-wheel-drive transfer case with high and low ranges. Ford says it’ll get from zero to 62 mph in 10.5 seconds and top out at 106 mph. That dinky motor also means (again, according to Ford) it’ll manage 26.4 mpg in mixed driving. Not too bad considering it weighs 5141 lbs.
Being a big, practical truck, you’d expect the Ranger Raptor to be ideally set up for tradespeople to do… trade things. But it kind of isn’t. In order to make it all Raptor-y, some sacrifices had to be made—the baby Raptor can’t tow as much as its less hardcore siblings (5512 lbs versus 7716 lbs) and its cargo bed is rated for a maximum of 1367 lbs, down from nearly 3000 lbs depending on trim. In the U.K., it’s not classed as a commercial vehicle, which means buyers don’t get any commercial tax breaks on that nearly £50,000 price tag (just over $62,000 at time of writing).
It hasn't got much power, it can’t do as much as its more pedestrian brethren, and you can’t get a tax break on it. That doesn’t sound great, does it? Thing is, while many will turn their noses up at the Ranger Raptor purely for those reasons, there will be those who actually drive one. And they will fall hard for it.
This Ranger is a big thing for Europe. It’s over six feet tall, seven feet wide, and nearly 18 feet long. The aggressive nose with its giant embossed FORD script is striking, set off by imposing flared wheel arches. It looks like the kind of thing you’d see on a Saturday morning cartoon, not trundling through town. A real-life Tonka truck, if you will. Get inside and there’s some neat Raptor details, plus Ford’s SYNC system to get you around—it’s a bit of a faff to use, but once you get your head around it you won’t have the worst time. Or you can use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and ignore SYNC in its entirety. Dfinitely do that, but don’t try to text with it—you’ll just end up having an argument with a dashboard, but that’s a CarPlay problem, not a Raptor problem.
On the regular, you’ll likely find the Raptor MASSIVE. Because of its girth, narrow European roads will feel a little on the tight side. Comfortably so, but you'll need your wits about you on properly narrow stretches. That 210-hp motor feels as sluggish as the numbers suggest, too. Getting it up to speed takes patience for a vehicle with "RAPTOR" emblazoned on the back—in Jurassic Park they were lightning fast, but this one feels as though it has a thorn in its paw. The ten-speed ‘box is smooth, but feels as though it has a few more ratios than it really needs. The brakes, again, will stop its bulk smoothly, but not on a dime. The steering doesn’t give amazing feedback, and it's a touch light in the regular driving modes, but this is a commercial vehicle (except in the eyes of the law), so that’s not the end of the world. Rolling on a set of chunky BF Goodrich off road-leaning tires, the truck can feel a little odd at low speed. Luckily, the ride is smooth on asphalt, so getting from A to B isn’t a bother. And although it’s big and our roads are not, flat sides help you place the thing in the lane, so it’s not all doom and gloom. Most Ranger Raptors will probably spend their time on road in either "normal" or "sport" mode (wick turned up a bit, more noise), and that’ll be that.
It is, however, capable of going off-road. There are plenty of settings to help it deal with sand and rocks and gravel and whatever else you’ll find away from pavement. And with all four wheels driven, it’s just peachy. It does exactly what you expect it to do.
Then it does something silly—press the button for "Baja" mode, turn the traction control fully off, and you can do big silly drifts and massive rolling burnouts. Then point it at a rutted track, bury your foot and you’ll fly. Those Fox Shocks mean that the faster you go, the smoother the ride, even over horrid terrain. All of a sudden, preservation of momentum doesn’t matter, because you find yourself going very fast, everywhere—or at least feeling like it. A reserved Brit would call such a setting "a bit much," but they’d likely say that from the driver’s seat of a zillion-horsepower Range Rover SVAutobiography and not see the irony.
There’s little need for a pickup, much less a Raptor-ized one, in Europe, at least for most people. There’s even less need for one that doesn't qualify as a commercial vehicle, is quite expensive, and is designed to kick the stuffing out of a desert landscape we don't really have. But the Ranger Raptor exists, and as seemingly pointless as it sounds, it’s the kind of thing that should exist, just because. If you want one, you’ll buy it. If you don’t, you simply won’t understand or even acknowledge it. And you’ll be missing out on some weapons-grade silliness.
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