Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

The biggest toy for the biggest boys
By Imthishan Giado

‘We’ve been waiting a while for this one’ is something of an understatement when it comes to Ford’s mighty Raptor.

This SVT-designed brute first shook the world to its very foundations all the way back in 2010. Check the date on this post and you’ll see ‘2012’ – that’s how long it took for Ford Middle East to get one into our sweaty paws, with the consequence that the Raptor we’re driving today is very different from the one that first debuted two years ago.

For starters, there are now two Raptors available – a full four-door SuperCrew version has joined the regular two-and-a-half door SuperCab version. Then there’s the engine – the original (and underwhelming) launch 5.4-litre Triton V8 was binned last year in favour of a full-fat 6.2-litre monster appropriately dubbed the ‘Boss’. Not to be confused with the Mustang of the same name, this mill develops 411bhp and a colossal 434lb ft of torque, enough to get even the Raptor’s hefty 2.7 tonne weight moving with ease. More on that later…

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that this Race-Red beauty is not, in fact, the latest Raptor. The 2013 car that’s just been launched features a different design of bead lock wheels (which won’t allow off the tyres to come off the rim in the sand) and an LSD on the front axle, in addition to the standard centre and rear diffs on this car. It also gets a front facing camera, useful when you’re about to go over those big dunes. But hey, we’ve waited two years to drive this beast, I wasn’t going to be picky about the spec.

Nevertheless, the Raptor is one of the most intimidating cars I’ve ever driven. It looks massive from a distance and is only more so up close. Those massive flared fenders, the searing red paint, the chunky tyres – you won’t lose it in a car park in a hurry. If you need a car to boost your, er, ego, this is the best thing imaginable, better than even something from Maranello. Walking up to it with the (disappointingly normal) Ford key clasped in your palm is a very satisfying feeling.

Until you need to get in, that is. Climbing it into is not for the short or the fat; it requires a hefty reach into the cabin to find the big door handle to haul yourself in And then once behind the wheel, there’s a few surprises because that huge 133.3 inch wheelbase, the Raptor isn’t actually that spacious. Oh sure, the front two passengers have a throne like seating position that would shame a Range Rover and there’s plenty of knee and elbow room, but the amount of protrusion into your personal space from the chunky dash and door panels can feel a tad claustrophobic.

I couldn’t help but feel slightly ridiculous. Everything from the wheel to the shifter is sized for someone the size of the Rock, not scrawny-under-six-foot me. It literally feels like being in one of the Tonka Toys I used to play with as a kid. The intimidation factor is not helped by the fact that there’s so many elements competing for your attention. Between the steering wheel and the dash, it’s like there was an explosion in a button factory, all identically sized and labelled.

Then there’s the screens – oh my God, the screens. There’s a full colour high-res one between the tach and speedo which supplies fuel consumption, trip and ‘Off Road Apps’; the latter consisting of inclinometers and tow controllers and all that jazz. The main console is dominated by a large central screen controlling the HVAC, entertainment and navigation.

Thankfully, this is not the impossibly fiddly MyFordTouch system you find in the Explorer and Edge but the old Sync system, which pairs quickly and easily with your phone and once you work out what all the buttons do, is relatively easy to use. That’s more than can be said however, for the navigation system, which looks strangely out of place in comparison to the rest of the software, almost like Ford bolted in an aftermarket unit. It’s not particularly intuitive and refuses to accept inputs if you’re even slightly moving – thanks, over zealous American legislators.

Sound quality from the standard Sony stereo system is good if slightly muddy in the midrange and biased toward bass. One of the drawbacks of the giant speakers based in the door is crap imaging – all the sound appears to be pointed at your knees, as if there’s a concert happening in your crotch. And because your left leg blocks one speaker, all the sound seems to be coming from the right. Charming.

But again, don’t buy a Raptor for the toys. Actually, don’t buy it for practicality, either. You might think, ‘whoa pickup truck! Most useful car ever!’ But the rear seats are cramped for long journeys and access is only fair with the rear suicide doors – which are a pain to open in cramped mall car parks.

Speaking of malls, the Raptor is never less friendly than in any of Dubai’s fine shopping centres where its behemoth size makes it hugely difficult to navigate and park. This truck is literally the exact size of an average car space (and nearly a foot wider than a Land Cruiser!) so it requires intensely careful manoeuvring before it’s properly planted.  And since there is no boot – because this is a truck – all your shopping has to ride in the cab with you, unless you like to see it rolling around an open truck bed. Here the Ram 1500 scores highly with those lockable ‘Ram boxes’ neatly solving the storage problem.

‘C’mon,’ you’re crying out by now, ‘what’s the Raptor like to actually drive? I didn’t come here to hear how it handles prams and IKEA flatpacks!’ In a word – awesome. But to add some more words – it’s complicated.

On the road, where the Ram 1500 is car-like and deft, belying its size, the Raptor is resolutely truck-like to control. The steering is heavy, vague slow to react, while the brakes are far from pin-sharp in their responsiveness. You’re always, always aware of how big this thing is – but you’re also always, always of how ridiculously awesome it is. From the moment you turn the key, it charms the pants off of you, emitting a brutish burble from the tailpipe that gurgles and spits as you lay off and on the throttle. Not to mention, the view over that great vast hood is of chiselled plains and great jagged vents, like Mad Max’s idea of a sport truck.

One surprising fact is that despite those huge 35-inch BFG tyres, the ride is not exactly pillowy-soft. Truth be told, it’s surprisingly firm with the back end bouncing around in a most uncouth fashion at times, and never feeling terribly settled even at speed, constantly jittering over cats eyes and imperfections. On the plus side, this firmness does mean that the Raptor will get entertainingly sideways at the drop of your right foot, like a real good ‘ol boy rally car.

Did I mention entertainment? Seriously, if you really want to see what the Raptor is capable of, you need to get off the roads and into the rough stuff. And of course, remember to deflate the tyres, because at a stock pressure of 44psi, the BFGs will only dig a hole to China, not climb Big Red.

Once you’ve finished airing down those tyres (and boy does it take a while) set your expectations to warp speed – and prepare for them to be surpassed. Stodgy on road, the Raptor positively comes alive on the dunes. The light on road steering is perfectly matched to cutting lines across the dunes, virtually any line you choose – while the braking is perfectly judged, stopping the car easily but crucially not sharply enough to dig that heavy front end into the sand. And of course, in the open space is no issue and the Raptor’s super long wheel base ceases to become a hindrance.

In fact, the Raptor becomes an amazing companion, taking you anywhere you need to go. If you can see it, you can get to it, thanks to the amazingly wide approach and departure angles, which allow you to tackle sharp dunes however you want. About the only improvement I could suggest would to be remove the running boards to improve the breakover angles even further, but the Raptor certainly didn’t get beached on top of any crests – it’s far too well balanced for that sort of thing.

The secret weapon to the Raptor’s impressively agile feel and forgiving nature is two fold. First, the engine is an absolutely honey, with ample torque available on idle and screaming, five-storey bowl-demolishing power available on command and no flat spots to be found. Sure , fuel economy is atrocious on road and dips well into the double digits for every litre per 100km when you’re caning it, but who cares? This must be one of the most impressive offroad engines ever built and adding a supercharger (which aftermarket providers like Hennessey will happily provide) feels like overkill. Equally worth of praise is the standard six speed automatic which shifts quickly and offers locked detents for first and second gears – the ones you’ll use most of the time – as well as a true manual mode. The latter is a bit of a faff – to use it, you have to operate a flimsy rocker switch on the gear stick. Paddles are something we’d definitely like, Ford…

The other key to the Raptor is without doubt, the amazing Fox Racing suspension. Enough has been written about these amazing shocks that I won’t bore you with the details yet again but know this: they are absolutely the real deal. In the sand, the key to speed is grip, and grip comes from keeping a wheel on the ground at all times. That’s the magic of the Fox shocks, because they feel absolutely glued to the ground, even when the ground feels like syrup. Time and time again, the Raptor is able to find purchase and grip in terrain where even lighter cars struggled, the big engine coming to the rescue and yanking a wheel out of near-death situations with unquestioned authority. Some praise must go to the standard Torsen rear-diff which distributes power democratically to the wheel with the most traction; get into serious trouble and a fully locked diff is only a knob-pull away, though I never needed it.

Some notes on our particular kind of offroading. The Raptor offers a big button on the lower console marked ‘Off Road Mode’ which alters the throttle mapping, ABS envelope, relaxes the ESP setttings and holds onto gears longer. The throttle mapping alterations are particularly interesting – in a normal car, the engine is designed to open the throttle disproportionately wider over the first few inches of pedal travel to give you a torquey feel, but with Off Road Mode, it’s mapped to a 1:1 style instead. A full foot to the floor gives you full throttle and for many who are used to the instant-on response of modern electronic throttles, it can be disconcertingly different.

Driven this way, the software provides an idiot-proof way of tackling the sand, allowing you to travel through most dune areas without having to do anything besides pointing the thing. But if you really want to access the full breadth of the Raptor’s considerable capability, you’ll want to leave the safety of Off Road Mode behind and turn off the traction and ESP systems completely. Granted, this takes more skill, but you’ll find the Raptor will climb faster, harder and is more responsive than the electronics will allow.

Secondly – the Raptor’s immense 220.6-inch length works against you in tighter dune sections and will require some precise steering control. Even so, and even with the Raptor’s special plastic bumpers the truck is still likely to wipe its nose on the front of dunes and drag its tail at the bottom of bowls, so it’s worth investing in custom reinforced bumpers to improve your angles. If you’re not planning on doing too much of those and stick to the bigger dunes, the Raptor is just fine.

Verdict
What can be said about the Raptor that hasn’t already been said? If you’ve made it all the way to the bottom of this, quite a lot, as it turns out. The Raptor is an F-150 like no other – tough, agile, personable and monstrously quick, pound-for-pound the best off-roader money can buy. Yes, in stock form better even than the Land Cruiser or G-Class.

However, before you all rush out and buy one, there are some things to keep in mind. It costs an awful lot of money to fuel and run which is not really an issue for us out here, but what is an issue is that the awesomeness of the Raptor constantly butts up against the real world, where it’s simply too big to park anywhere, not especially spacious or comfortable and is actually less practical than a normal F-150 in terms of storage. And when it comes to on road driving, the Ram 1500 runs rings around it.

So really, it’s a toy for the weekend. But oh, what a toy.

Specs
2012 Ford Raptor 6.2 Supercab
How much? AED260,000 ($70,780)
Engine: 6.2-litre, V8, 411bhp @ 5500rpm, 434lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel Economy: 14.7L/100km
Performance: 0-100kph 6.9 seconds, Top speed NA
Weight: 2721kg

Read an owner’s review of the Ford Raptor here (submit your own review to MME@MotoringME.com)