Read more
LISTEN: Can Ford Ranger Raptor become SA’s first sub-6 bakkie?
Beastly bakkie could put more daylight between itself and the Toyota Hilux GR-S in sea level sprint test.
The new Ford Ranger Raptor is not done setting records yet. Picture: Colin Mileman
In April the Ford Ranger Raptor became the fastest production bakkie The Citizen Motoring has tested.
Now this beastly machine is out to go even faster. Next week Road Test Mark Jones takes the Raptor down to sea level in KwaZulu-Natal in a bid to try and beat the sprint times achieved at altitude in Gauteng.
Listen to Pitstop podcast
In this week’s Pitstop podcast, Mark discusses the upcoming test with Jaco van der Merwe. He explains what is the difference between naturally aspirated and turbocharged engines and how altitude affects their performances.
While the Ford Ranger Raptor is intended to be an off-road performance bakkie, it has also blown away everything on the road due to its tremendous power.
The Ford Ranger Raptor is powered by a 3.0-litre V6 twin-turbo petrol engine. The mill produces 292 kW of power and 583 Nm of torque.
The Raptor rewrote our time sheets by blitzing from 0 to 100km/h in 6.9 seconds during Mark’s test at Gerotek. It was more than a second faster than the previous record set by the 190 kW VW Amarok. The Amarok recorded a sprint time of 8.14 seconds two years prior.
Ford Ranger Raptor rules
The new Amarok will also not threaten the new benchmark. The most powerful new Amarok’s 184 kW V6 mill is also offered in the Ford Ranger Wildtrak. The V6 Ford Ranger recorded a time of 9.29 seconds in our sprint test.
More importantly for Ford is that the Raptor put daylight between it and its fastest contender from great rival Toyota. The fastest Toyota Hilux on our time sheets is the GR-S which clocked 10.32 seconds in the sprint test.
ALSO READ: LISTEN: Ford Ranger Raptor settles fastest bakkie debate
But what more could Ford possibly want from the Raptor? To put its sprint time in perspective, it will give the VW Golf 6 GTI a run for its money.
The ultimate feather in Blue Oval’s cap would be for the new Raptor to dip under six seconds. This has been achieved during testing overseas, but under vastly different circumstances as Mark explains in the podcast.
