With a Ranger Thunder weighing in at £39,558, Ford is expecting you to pay an additional £10,000 or so for the Raptor’s extra ability. Plus, it can tackle some surprisingly slippy terrain while still in two-wheel drive mode. On the whole, it requires more care, whereas, with the Raptor, you can charge at things without a care in the world.
#Raptor ford driver
It performed admirably, but it bottomed out more frequently and bounced the driver around more. The Thunder covered the same ground as the Ranger with its road-biased tyres rarely struggling for grip or traction. The Raptor’s true trump card is how hard you can traverse hardy terrain. Respectable, but a little way off something like a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. A Raptor manages 32.5 for approach and 24 for both the breakover and departure angles. Like a lot of pick-ups, the Thunder has an old-school leaf-sprung, live axle rear suspension layout, but the Raptor gets a coil-sprung arrangement with a Watt’s Linkage which makes for near-straight suspension travel.Ī standard Ranger like the Thunder has approach, breakover and departure angles of 28.7, 21.5 and 25.4 respectively. The Raptor also gets new aluminium control arms and an entirely bespoke rear suspension setup. Fox’s defence arm describes position sensitive damping as “particularly well suited to military vehicle operations on the modern battlefield,” which is nice to know when you’re bimbling along a British green lane in Cambridgeshire. The setup also means you’re less likely to bottom out. This makes for a reasonable degree of comfort when you’re driving around normally, but plenty of control when the going gets rough.
The dampers are position sensitive, meaning they’re relatively soft during the initial travel, firming up towards the far end of the compression stroke. 63mm-diameter Fox Racing dampers increase front travel by 32 per cent and rear travel by 18 per cent.
The Raptor’s front and rear tracks are each a massive 150mm wider, and the vehicle sits 51mm taller. This is where Ford has done a big chunk of the work.