It is not only bakkies that should be wary of the new Ford Ranger Raptor's performance. Picture: Colin MIleman
The Ford Ranger Raptor in April became the fastest production bakkie The Citizen Motoring has ever tested.
The beastly machine sprinted from 0 to 100km/h in a time of 6.90 seconds up in Gauteng. A record it would shatter hardly a month later with a time of 5.84 seconds down at sea level.
The Citizen Motoring‘s Jaco van der Merwe and Mark Jones discuss the significance of the Ford Ranger Raptor’s latest test result on this week’s edition of the Pitstop podcast.
The Ford Ranger Raptor is actually designed to be an off-road performance bakkie. But when Ford announced last year that the new generation would be powered by a 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol engine producing 292kW of power and 583Nm of torque, the writing was on the wall for its rivals.
Never mind what it was going to be capable of off the tarmac, with outputs like those the Ford Ranger Raptor was always going to take some beating on the road too.
The previous benchmark for a double cab production bakkie was set by the previous generation VW Amarok. The 190kW version of the Amarok set put bakkie sprint record of 8.14 seconds back in 2021.
And the new Amarok is not reclaiming the crown anytime soon either. The new VW Amarok is built alongside the Ford Ranger in Silverton. And swopping its previous 3.0-litre turbodiesel for the Ford mill that is also available on the Ranger has set it back by over a second. An assumption based on our test results of the new V6 Ford Ranger that took 9.29 seconds from 0 to 100km/h.
ALSO READ: WATCH: What you need to know about new Ford Ranger Raptor
For the new Ranger Raptor to not only just pip this Amarok, but drill it by over two seconds just seems unreal. Especially for a double cab that in essence was originally built to transport cargo.
But now that it has annihilated anything bakkie-wise off the showroom floor, passenger cars should start to worry too. Especially hot hatches. There is a Golf 6 on Mark’s time sheets that was slower going from 0 to 100km/h.
ALSO READ: WATCH: Wait is over: High-flying new Ford Ranger Raptor priced
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