The 2019 Ford Ranger Raptor is not available in America, the land of wide parking spots and wider-open spaces where wild trucks can roam free. Instead, this angry off-roader comes to England. Roads are tight, getting off-road isn’t simply a matter of “oh look, a desert,” and slinging mud from all-terrain tires is generally frowned upon here.
Somehow, we managed to have fun with the thing anyway.
(Full Disclosure: The team at Ford wanted me to drive the Raptor so bad I was invited to a hotel on the outskirts of the adorably named village of Bepton in the UK. They fed me, watered me, and took pictures of me driving the new Range Raptor because they’re nice like that.)
As an Englishman, the American penchant for pickups has always mystified me. They’re big, have a large, exposed load bay in the rear, and the interiors range from “grim” to “grim with shiny bits on.” As far as something to use as a car, they appear to offer the worst of two worlds: illogical family car, overdressed load lugger.
At a water park in Tulsa I once saw a lady and her children climb down from an F-650, a vehicle so needlessly large I was stunned into rare silence. To my tea-drinking mind, they’re just a bit cack.
However, I do think they’re cool. This may be because in the UK we basically don’t get them. Trucks being used as cars simply isn’t a thing.
OK, if you’re a tradesman or a farmer, pickup trucks make sense. But drive to most towns and you won’t see one. We have vans over here, or wagons. This means that when you do see a pickup, it’s a special day. They usually come with big, overly masculine names like Barbarian, Ultraviolence, or Gun, and that appeals to my inner 12-year-old.
They’re never usually all that fast, often powered by a torquey but slow diesel motor, but that rarely matters because they’re pickups-tools, rather than trinkets. And that means they’re going to be able to go up dirtier tracks than a Range Rover, and have scuffs and mud all over the inside. As I said: cool.
Unsurprisingly, Ford doesn’t sell the F-150 in England. It’s too big, too silly, too much for our tastes. That’s a shame purely because I’ve only ever heard good things about the full-sized Raptor. As you well know, the Raptor is the truck you get if you want to compete in a desert race on your way home from work.
Ford does, however, sell the Ranger here. It’s a smaller, more sanitized, diesel truck. You can have one with a single, or double cab, and varying degrees of luxury. It’s a decent way to get around-it’ll go up muddy things and it’s just fine on the road.