Ford Debuts Its Next-Gen Ranger Raptor Pickup, and It’s Coming to America

We get a lot of very cool cars and trucks here in the USA, but one that we never previously saw on our shores is the Ford Ranger Raptor. We get the full-size F-150 Raptor, and now we’re getting the Bronco Raptor, but if you’ve wanted a fast and highly off-road-capable midsize truck in America, you’re couldn’t get it from the Blue Oval. But that’s changing with the 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor that debuted on Monday, which Ford CEO Jim Farley confirmed will come to the US on Twitter.

The new Ranger Raptor is powered by a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter unit that produces a very robust 392 horsepower and 430 pound-feet of torque. It’s mated with a 10-speed automatic transmission that offers individual boost profiles for each of those forward gears.

The Ranger Raptor has an active exhaust system, too, with four profiles that are selectable through a button on the steering wheel. The modes are Quiet, Normal, Sport and Baja, and we can only assume that Baja sounds pretty rude in the best possible way. Oh, and did we mention that Ford has seen fit to include antilag on the Ranger Raptor to increase turbo response?. It probably sounds rad too.

Because the Raptor is likely to be subjected to some fairly extreme mistreatment at the hands of its enthusiast owners, Ford, having learned its lesson with the first F-150 Raptors, has spent a great deal of time reinforcing the Ranger Raptor’s chassis above and beyond the regular next-gen rest-of-world Ranger.

To handle the jumps and bumps of whatever far-flung desert the Ranger Raptor finds itself in, Ford has equipped it with 2.5-inch Fox Live Valve shocks, which are filled with Dupont Teflon-infused oil and which should provide plenty of cushy damping even over terrible roads or no roads. Those shocks are bolted to a suspension system that’s made mostly of aluminum to help save on weight. Features like Trail Control and terrain modes make an appearance as well.

Inside, the next-gen Ranger features all kinds of niceties like a 12.4-inch digital dash and a 12-inch center touchscreen, the latter of which is running Ford’s Sync 4A infotainment system with features like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto coming along for the ride. There is also an available Bang & Olufson sound system.

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