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Since 2010, the Ford Raptor has been at the pinnacle of desert trucks.
It's essentially a Baja Pre-runner right out of the box.
It is the kind of all trucks.
But that doesn't mean that it couldn't be improved and that's just what Ford did for this latest iteration.
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The most controversial change is in the powertrain.
Gone is that 6.2 V8 engine and in it's stead is a 3.5 liter eco boost V6.
Now that's quite a blow for those folks who say that there's no replacement for displacement but listen, that smaller engine makes more power.
450 horsepower and 511 pound feet of torque that's up from 411 horsepower and 434 from last year.
Plus, it's lost a lot of weight, it's left 500 pounds at the Weight Watchers Facility thanks to a high-strength, aluminum alloy body.
So less weight more power and I really don't see what there is to complain about.Ford has also improved the shock so the Raptor can just bomb through the desert like never before.
three inch Fox shocks give you 13 inches of travel in the front and 13.9 in the rear.
That's up two inches in the rear from the last generation My one complaint about the truck is that it's so big.
I mean it's six inches wider than the standard F-150.
86 inches across the front and that's not even counting the mirrors.
In fact, it's so wide that it needs to have amber running lights in order to be DOT compliant This super [UNKNOWN] that I'm in has got a wheel base of 146 inches and sure it lacks a little bit of weight but it's still weights 57,000 pounds.
So it's great for some high speed desert running but [UNKNOWN] canyon, maybe not so much.
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This new powertrain has made it to a ten speed automatic transmission.
Yes, ten speeds.
Now you can shift it manually from the paddle shifters and it doesn't really seem to get in its own way much.
Now a lot of that is due to the fact that there are six drive modes in this vehicle, three of them are specifically for off road.
Now, as much as I really wanna try the Baja high speed run.
I'm here in Hollister just south of San Jose, and there's been a lot of rain here.
So, I think we're gonna concentrate on the mud baby.
Now at some point, you're gonna have to drive on the pavement.
I know, it's such a bummer.
But, the Raptor is reasonably composed, especially for the fact, that it is riding on 35 inch tires, and with the soft off road suspension Keep in mind that you are the biggest, baddest mofo on the road.
And you're probably gonna miss a few of those tiny little small cars.
Fortunately the Raptor has got a blind spot monitoring system and a 360 degree camera.
Those are part of a $9,000 option package.
But don't worry, cuz [UNKNOWN] heated and cooled front seats are part of that too.
The SYNC 3 system on an eight inch touch screen is really good.
You can check out our deep dive of that on another video.
But safe to say it's got Apple CarPlay and AndroidAuto so I'm happy.
Look, I found the mud.
Found the mud, found the mud.
All right, I'm gonna put this into mud mode.
That is going to lock the torque split 50 50 front and rear.
It's also gonna put me in four high, lock my rear differential.
It's gonna give me as much traction as possible.
Plus, I've aired down my 35 inch BFG KO 2 tires, going to give me a bigger footprint, so I'm ready for all the traction.
Ready.
Let's go baby.
Let's go.
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When it comes to competition.
well there's just isn't that much out there.
You might look at a Jeep Wrangler but it's not a truck and it also doesn't have the same kind of high speed agility as the Ford Raptor.
The Toyota [UNKNOWN] is a great little run about but again, it's down on power.
We have seen some concepts from both Ram and Nissan but as of yet there's no plans to produce those.
The 2017 Ford Raptor starts at just over 40 $49,000 but this super crew here behind me with over $17,000 of options.
Well that's put the price up to $69,995.
Is it worth it?
What is happiness worth if you love it you should buy it.
I have a feeling you won't be disappointed.
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