Next-gen Ford Ranger Raptor should come to the US, report says
The report says it may not surface until 2022 at the earliest.
Ford has already told the US eight ways from Sunday that the new Ranger will not carry a hardcore Raptor variant. Yet, some clever social-media digging has revealed that this might change when the Ranger enters its next generation.
It's believed that the next-generation Ford Ranger will bring a Raptor variant to the US, Road & Track reports, citing a number of social media profiles of Ford engineers. Profiles have made mention of working on a North American-spec Ranger Raptor with an internal project code, P703, that is believed to be the follow-up to the Ranger that just arrived in the US, which first entered the global market in 2011.
The report goes on to suggest that the P703 Ranger is still a few years away, destined for a 2022 debut. Automakers rarely discuss future cars until they want to, and Ford already declined to comment to both Road & Track and Roadshow.
Ford was quick to quash rumors that the current-generation Ranger Raptor would make a Stateside appearance. It makes sense, too -- the Ranger Raptor wields a 2.0-liter twin-turbocharged diesel I4, and diesel has such a tenuous existence in the US as it is. It was also deemed unlikely that Ford would go to the trouble of reengineering the car for the US.
It's not like a Ford Ranger Raptor would be lacking competition in the US, but at the same time, there's not a whole lot. Its prime competitor in the US would be the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, which Ford has already said it's aware of but chooses not to compete with. That may change in a couple years' time, though.
